i^-^c 



"P^ in 






Opening 
and General Exercises ^^ 



OPENING EXERCISES FOR SCHOOLS. By Thomas K. Sanders. 
A treasury of exercises, suggestions, stories, songs, poems; gems, 
references, etc. There are nearly fifty complete stories in the book 
and several hundred graded memory gems: enough for the entire 
year. Ill pages. Paper. Price, 25 cents. 

SELECT STORIES FOR OPENING EXERCISES IN SCHOOLS. 
By Geo. F. Bass. Contains over 150 of the most striking and in- 
teresting anecdotes and poems published, carefully grouped under 
the different headings, as honesty, politeness, kindness, etc. 256 
pages. Cloth. Price, 50 cents. Paper, 30 cents. 

STORIES AND EXERCISES FOR OPENING SCHOOL: Or Les- 
sons on the Virtues. By Walter R. Houghton. This book is novel 
in its plan and arrangement and is sure to appeal to many teachers. 
The content is classified under five heads: Truth, Justice, Wisdom, 
Benevolence, and Self-Control, which in turn are divided into thirty- 
two chapters, each dealing with some common virtue. To every 
chapter there are three subdivisions, the first giving an explanation 
of the virtue, and the other two each being an attractive story il- 
lustrating the ethical principle involved. In an appendix are given 
228 helpful lesson plans, with questions and answers on the p-receding 
stories and topics. 232 pages. Paper. Price, 30 cents. 
PROVERBS AND QUOTATIONS. By John Keitges. The chief 
aim in this collection has been to select such material as may be of 
ethical value. Well arranged. 105 pages. Cloth. Price, 35 cents. 
GEOGRAPHY GAME. By Harriet B. Rogers. Consists of 100 cards 
with five questions and answers on each card, thus teaching 500 im- 
portant facts of geography. In box, with directions. Price, 40 cents. 
UNITED STATES HISTORY CARDS. By Mary H. Husted. One 
hundred ten cards, each with from three to five salient facts in 
questions referring to the answer contained in the name or names at 
top of the card. In box, with directions. Price, 40 cents. 
THIRTY-EIGHT LITTLE STORIES. On twenty cards, 4^x6^ 
inches, in envelope. Especially suited to the lower grades. Price, 
per set, 10 cents. 

A. FLANAGAN COMPANY - CHICAGO 



FRIDAY AFTERNOON 
ENTERTAINMENTS 



Games, Exercises, Drills, and 
Action Songs for all Grades 



BY 

HARRIETTE V/ILBUR 



* A. FLANAGAN COMPANY 

CHICAGO 



o^ 



V 



^H^ 



Copyright 1914 

BY 

A. FLANAGAN COMPANY 



SEP 25 1914 

©CI.A380547 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

An Animal Alphabet 5 

A Bird Alphabet 11 

A Tree Alphabet 18 

A Flower Alphabet 24 

Each for S7 children 

The Christmas Trees 31 

8 girls or 8 'boys 

The Christmas Trees 34 

6, 10, 15 or 21 girls 

Christmas Bells ". 36 

Any number of children 

The Way op the Autumn Leaves 38 

Any number of children 

Nature and the Poets 42 

September — A Month of Insects 43 

October — A Month of Fruits 56 

November — A Month of Vegetables 68 

December — A Month of Fish 81 

January — A Month of Beasts 93 

February — A Month of Mollusks and Crustaceans 105 

March — A Month of Trees , 116 

April — A Month of Song Birds 128 

May — ^A Month of Blossoms 141 

June — A Month of Grasses 152 

For as many children as days in the month 
May be arranged for any number 

A Patriotic Medley 165 

Any number of children 

Pilgrim Maids 168 

7 little girls 

Waiting to Grow 170 

Any number of children 



Friday Afternoon Entertainments 

AN ANIMAL ALPHABET 

1. Tiger: 

Tiger ! Tiger ! burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

— William Blake 

2. Guinea Pig: 

^'If you pick up your guinea-pig, 
And hold it by the tail, 
And shake it hard, its eyes drop out,'' 
Said little Tommy Vale. 

I love my guinea — yet, dear me, 

I had to test the rule ; 
But as the tail's too short to hold, 

Tom cried, ''It's April Fool!" 

3. Kangaroo: 

Hippety-hop ! hippety-hop ! 

Over the hill and through the dale ! 
And when he's tired, he rests his legs 

By balancing on his tail. 
5 



6 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTB 

4. Yak: 

As a friend of the children, commend me the yak, 

You will find it exactly the thing. 
It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back, 

Or lead it about with a string. 

5. Ant-Eater: 

This animal never goes hungry — not he, 
For his tongue, so moist and slim. 

Goes quietly into a big ant hill 
And gathers his food for him. 

6. Newfoundland Dog: 

The large Newfoundland house-dog 

"Was standing by the door; 
He looked for his little playmates 

Who would return no more. 

— Longfellow 

7. Ibex: 

The Ibex lives up on the mountain-tops high, 
And all day long he does nothing but fly 
From one peak to another; but to follow this I- 
bex, of course, little children, j^ou never will try ! 

8. Opossum: 

When Mrs. Opossum decides to change flats, 
She turns herself into a moving van; 

Her children stand up in a row on her back 
And hold by the tails as tight as they can. 

9. Weasel: 

A weasel once made shift to slink 
In at a corn-loft through a chink; 
But having amply stuffed his skin, 
Could not get out as he got in: 



Pope 



AN ANIMAL ALPHABET 

Which one belonging to the house 
( 'Twas not a man, it was a mouse) 
Observing, cried, ''You 'scape not so, 
Lean as you came, sir, you must go." 

10. Unicorn: 

There is a strange sort of a whale 
That is known as the unicorn, 

Because on one jaw he wears a great tusk 
All made of an ivory-like horn. 

11. Deer: 

''Go, my son, into the forest, 
Where the red deer herd together, 
Kill for us a famous roebuck, 
Kill for us a deer with antlers ! " 

— Hiawatha 

12. QUAGGA: 

Of course you thought there wouldn't be 

A name to begin with Q. 
You must have forgotten the quagga queer, 

Once living in far-off Zulu. 

13. Squirrel: 

IVe seen the freakish squirrels drop 

Down from their leafy tree, 
The little squirrels with the old, — 

Great joy it was to me ! 

— Mary Howitt 



14. Xerus: 



The Xerus lives in Africa, 
And, though the name is new, 

It's cousin of the prairie-dog. 
And of the gopher, too. 



8 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

15. Cat: 

Pussy-cat! Pussy-cat! Where have you been? 
I've been to London to visit the queen. 
Pussy-cat! Pussy-cat! What did you there? 
I caught a little mouse under her chair. 

16. Porcupine: 

Needles and Pins! Needles and Pins! 
When Porcupine comes, the trouble begins. 

The beasts all fly 

When he goes by — 
They have no love for Needles and Pins. 

17. Mouse: 

Patter, patter, 

What a clatter! 
Fast the scrambling footsteps fall; 

'Tis some giant, 

Fierce, defiant, — 
Nay, a little mouse, that's all. 

— Lady Lindsay 

18. Fox: 

The fox is not an animal 

So very large in size; 
But what he lacks in pounds and feet, 

Makes up in being wise. 

19. Lamb: 

1 Mary had a little lamb. 

Its fleece was white as snow, 
And everywhere that Mary went 
The lamb was sure to go. 



AN ANIMAL ALPHABET 

20. VoLE: 

The house-mouse has a relative 

That never goes to town; 
But lives contented all the year 

In grainfields gold and brovs^n. 

21. Beaver: 

In the stream he saw a beaver, 
Saw Ahmeek, the King of Beavers, 
Struggling with the rushing currents, 
Rising, sinking in the water. 

22. Hyena: —Hiawatha 

The spotted hyena goes prowling about 

To gather his food at night, 
And he 's always well pleased with the fare he finds, 

And commences to laugh outright. 

23. Zebu: 

If you should be traveling in India, 

And wish to ride out for awhile, 
A humpbacked zebu would be hitched to its cart, 

And off you would go in style. 

24. Jackal: 

The jackal is a cowardly dog 

And fears to hunt alone ; 
But by following the lion in the hunt, 

He never lacks for a bone. 

25. Raccoon: 

Of all the amusing buffoons 
One finds in a month of moons. 

The oddest yet, 

For a queer little pet, 
Is one of the ring-tailed raccoons. 



10 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

26. Elephant: 

The elephant finds it no trouble at all 
To go traveling here and there, 

For his trunk is always close at hand 
And so he has plenty to wear. 

27. &c. (And-so-Forth) : 

And-so-Forth is a jungle full 
Of every kind of mammal ; 

Rhinoceros, and grizzly bear, 
And hare and rat and camel. 



Suggestions 

If desired, each child may carry a picture of the animal mentioned 
in his stanza, though it is not necessary. Xerus may be represented 
by the picture of a ground-squirrel ; other pictures may be copied from 
illustrations found in a zoology or dictionary. The teacher writes the 
alphabet in large capitals on the blackboard, where all may see it 
easily. Before each child recites, he writes after the initial letter the 
name of the animal he is to present. Do not have the animals come 
in alphabetical order. At the close of 4, the list will look like this: 



A 




H 





V 


B 




I 


P 


w 







J 


Q 


X 


D 




Kangaroo 


R 


Yak 


E 




L 


S 


Z 


F 




M 


Tiger 


&c. 


Guin 


eaPig 


N 


U 





A BIRD ALPHABET 

1. Robin: 

Ring it out o'er hill and plain, 

Through the garden's lonely bowers, 
Till the green leaves dance again. 

Till the air is sweet with flowers! 
Wake the cowslips by the rill, 
Wake the yellow daffodil! 
Robin's come! 

— William Caldwell 

2. Jay: 

blue jay, up in the maple tree. 

Shaking your throat with such bursts of glee, 

How did you happen to be so blue ? 
Did you steal a bit of the lake for your crest, 
And fasten blue violets into your vest? 

Tell me, I pray you — tell me true ! 

— Susan Swett 

3. X-BiLL (Crossbill) : 

Tell me, funny little bird, 

Is it any trouble 
To eat with a peculiar bill 

That crosses nearly double? 



4. Eagle 



The largest bird, the strongest bird, 

The fiercest bird of all. 
The wildest bird, the freest bird, 

The king among them all. 
11 



12 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

5. Woodpecker: 

The old woodpecker is hard at work. 

A carpenter is he, 
And you can hear him hammering 

His nest up in a tree. 

6. Humming-bird: 

Like a flash of lightning, 

Like a rainbow bright, 
A tiny bird goes humming 

Through the flowers and light. 

7. Thrasher: 

There 's a merry brown thrush sitting up in a tree ; 
He 's singing to me ! He 's singing to me ! 
And what does he say, little girl, little boy? 
^'Oh! the world's running over with joy! 
Hush! Look! In my tree! 
I 'm as happy as happy can be ! " 

— Lucy Laecom 

8. Goldfinch: 

Is that a bird in the maple tree? 

Or a flower that perches and sings? 
It looks like a yellow pansy bright 

That has grown a pair of wings. 

9. Owl: 

So, when the night falls, and dogs do howl. 
Sing ho ! for the rule of the bold brown owl I 

We know not alway 

Who are kings by day. 
But the king of the night is the bold brown owl! 

— Barry Cornwall 



A BIED ALPHABET 13 

10. Albatross: 

Over the sea, 

Over the sea! 
The albatross 

A sailor is he ! 

11. Chicadee: 

**When I'm in good voice," said the chickadee, 
**I can sing way up to high C, high C ; 

But I've caught such a cold 

That for love or for gold 
I can only sing chick-a-dee-dee-dee.'* 

12. Pewee: 

"Dear little friend, what is your name?" 
I asked a bird in the maple tree; 
And soon a call in answer came, 
"Pewee! Pewee! Pewee!" 

13. Lark: 

I said to the sky-poised lark : 

"Hark! hark! 
Thy note is more loud and free 
Because there lies safe for thee 
A little nest on the ground. ' ' 

^ A ^T T» — Dinah Mulock 

14. Yellov^ Bird : 

A yellow bird in a maple tree 

Looked down on a yellow lawn. 
And laughed because each flower there 

A yellow dress had on. 
**You noisy bird," cried dandelion, 
"You saucy little fellow! 
I'd have you know / set the style 

In the wearing of bright yellow." 



14 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

15. Nuthatch: 

Nuthatch is no singer, his feathers are plain, 

Yet a most useful bird is he. 
Head up, head down, a-bugging he goes 

All over and round a tree. 
And this talkative worker will often cry 
To his shy little mate who is grubbing hard by, 
''Yank! yank! yank!'' 

16. Bobolink: 

Merrily swinging on brier and weed. 
Near to the nest of his little dame, 
O'er the mountain-side or mead, 
Robert-of -Lincoln is telling his name : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink; 
Snug and safe is that nest of ours, 
Hidden among the summer flowers, 
Chee, chee, chee ! 

17. Umbrella Bird : """ 

There is a funny bird that wears 
A small umbrella on his head; 

When caught out in a thunder-shower 
He needs no other watershed. 

18. Indigo Bird: 

Oh, little bird, with coat so blue ! 
Can it really be that you. 
Long ago, when mischief brewing, 
Fell into a tub of bluing? 

19. Swallow: 

Hurrah! the swallow, the swallow is come, 
Bringing the spring from his southern home, 



A BIRD ALPHABET 15 

, The beautiful hours, the beautiful year ! 
Hurrah ! the swallow is back from his flight, 
With his back of jet and his breast of white, 
The summer's earliest harbinger! 

^ ^ — Richard Hovey 

20. KiLLDEER: 

If you should ask a certain bird 

To speak right up both loud and clear, 

And tell you what his name might be, 

He'd answer plain, "Kill-deer! Kill-deer!" 

21. Quail: 

Hear the whistling call of the speckled quail, 
On the hill and in the dale, 
*'More wet! more wet! 'Twill rain to-night!" 
Who told me so? Why, Mister Bob White. 

22. Meadow Lark : 

One day as I strolled down a green meadow lea. 

This bird I happened to note; 
And the mischievous fellow was laughing at me, 
As he gurgled and bubbled deep down in his throat : 
''Ho-ho! ha-ha!" he laughed in glee; 
''Ho-ho! ha-ha! he-he! 

I-I see your pet-ti-coat ! " 

23. ViREO: 

Oh, little bird with softest coat. 

And eyes of fiery red; 
I wonder how such glowing coals 

Got into your small head? 

24. Flamingo: 

If I were a flamingo, 
With nothing else to do. 



16 FKIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

Except to wade, and wade, and wade — 

I know what I'd do. 
If I were a flamingo, 

And owned such stilts as you, 
I 'd wade, and wade, and wade, and wade, 

Across the ocean blue. 

25. Dove: 

Two doves sat up on the old barn roof 
And gossiped the whole day through. 

Yet all they said, that I understood, 
Was ''Coo! coo! coo!'' 

26. ZizzY-BiRD: 

Z is for the Zizzy-bird — 
Now don't expect to see one; 

But if you knew just what it is, 
You'd rather see than be one. 

27. &c. (And-so-Forth) : 

And-so-Forth is a whole Zoo full 

Of every kind of true bird: 
Tanager and cardinal. 

Hawk and gull and bluebird. 

[The last speaker may carry a picture of e^ch bird named in his 
stanza.] 

Suggestions 

Each child may carry a picture of the bird mentioned in his stanza — 
all but number 26, who carries a blank sheet of paper. The pictures 
of most of these may be secured of any supply house; the picture 
of the umbrella bird may be copied from that in the dictionary. The 
teacher writes the alphabet in large capitals on the blackboard, where 
all may see it easily. Before each child recites he writes after the 



A BIRD ALPHABET 17 

initial letter the name of the bird he is to present. Do not have the 
birds come in alphabetical order, as half the fun of the recitation is 
the finding of the proper place for writing the word. At the close 
of 4, the list will look like this: 



A 


H 





V 


B 


I 


P 


w 


C 


Jay 


Q 


X-Bill (Crossbill) 


D 


K 


Robin 


Y 


Eagle 


L 


S 


Z 


F 


M 


T 


&c. 


a 


N 


U 





A TEEE ALPHABET 

1. Hemlock: 

hemlock tree! hemlock tree! 

How faithful are thy branches! 
Green not alone in summer-time, 
But in the winter's frost and rime! 

hemlock tree! hemlock tree! 

How faithful are thy branches! 

— Longfellow 

2. Chestnut: 

There, by the blacksmith's forge, beside the street, 

Its blossoms white and sweet 

Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive 

And murmured like a hive. 

And when the winds of autumn, v/ith a shout, 

Tossed its great arms about, 

The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath, 

Dropped to the ground beneath. 

— Longfellow, From My Arm Chair 

3. Snowball: 

Can it be that it is snowing 

On this clear and sunny day ? 
Are the snowflakes thickly falling 

In the pleasant month of May ? 
No, it is the snowball blossoms 

Falling, falling from the trees, 
Dancing in a whirl of rapture 

To the music of the breeze. 
18 



A TREE ALPHABET 19 

4. Xmas Tree: 

The tree that I love the best, 
It buds and blossoms not with the rest; 
No summer sun on its fruit has smiled, 
But the ice and snow are around it piled. 
But still it will bloom and bear fruit for me, 
My winter bloomer ! My Christmas Tree ! 

5. Orange: 

Sing a song of the orange tree, 
"With its leaves of velvet green ! 

With its lucious fruit of sunset hue, 
The fairest that ever were seen. 

^ T • — J. K. HOYT 

6. Lilac: 

I am thinking of the lilac trees 
That shook their purple bloom ; 

And, when the sash was open, 
Shed fragrance through the room. 

7. Quince: — ^^^ Stephens 

Way down in the orchard stands 

A little quince tree, 
Filled with blossoms pink and white, 

As pretty as can be. 
A cousin to the apple, 

A cousin to the pear, 
But to a dish of quince preserve 

They neither can compare. 

8. Fir: 

A lonely fir tree is standing 

On a northern, barren height, 
It sleeps, and the ice and snowdrift 

Cast around it a garment of white. 

— Heinbich Heine 



20 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

9. Apple: 

Come, let us plant the apple tree. 
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade ; 
Wide let its hollow bed be made; 
There gently lay the roots, and there 
Sift the dark mould with kindly care, 

And press it round them tenderly — 
As, round the sleeping infant's feet, 
We softly fold the cradle-sheet, 

So plant we the apple-tree. 

— Bryant 

10. Yew: 

On England's pleasant shores, our sires 

Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades 

Or blossoms. There the yew. 

Green ever amid the snows of winter, told 

Of immortality. 

— Bryant 

11. Palm: 

The palm tree standeth so straight and so tall, 
The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall. 

— Longfellow 

12. Varnish Tree: 

A sumac grows far over the sea, 

In the land of the odd little Jap, 
And it's called by the name of the "varnish tree" — 

From the use of its milky sap. 

13. Juniper: 

'The juniper, or cedar tree. 
Has wood of deepest red; 
In making pencils it is used 
For all except the lead. 



A TREE ALPHABET 21 

14. Elm: 

Then hail to the Elm ! the green-topped Elm ! 

And long may his branches wave, 
For a relic is he, the gnarled old tree, 

Of the times of the good and the brave. 

15. Dogwood: 

There is a very smallish tree. 

With fruit so rich and dark; 
I w^onder if it's called dogwood 

Because it has a hark. 

16. Maple: 

In sugar-camps, when south and warm 
The winds of March are blowing — 

And sweetly from its thawing veins. 
The maple's blood is flowing. 

— Whittier 

17. Kentucky Coffee Tree: 

When the coffee crop fails to grow in Brazil 
There's one state that's always in luck; 

For they've only to harvest the beans of this tree 
To have coffee in old Kentuck. 

18. Birch: 

' ' Give me of your bark, Birch Tree, 
Of your yellow bark, Birch Tree! 
Growing by the rushing river. 
Tall and stately in the valley! 
I a light canoe will build me, 

That shall float upon the river. 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily." 

— Hiawatha 



22 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

19. Willow: 

''Come, Pussy!" is the southwind's call — 

' ' Come, Pussy ! Pussy "Willow ! ' ' 
A fairy gift to children dear, 
The downy firstling of the year, — ■ 

''Come, Pussy! Pussy Willow!" 

20. Gum: 

The hollow sycamore, so white. 
The old gum, straight and solemn, 

With never the curve of a root in sight. 
But set in the ground like a column. 

— Alice Caky 

21. Nutmeg: 

The nutmeg tree so beautiful 

Grows far beyond the sea. 
The kernel of its fruit is used 

To flavor food for me. 

22. Zulu Cherry: 

I wonder if, in Zululand, 
The happy children cry, 
"Cherry ripe! cherry ripe!" 
Just like you and I? 

23. India. Rubber Tree: 

Once upon a time, my dear. 

Your little rubber shoe 
Was milky sap from a rubber tree 

In far-away Peru. 

24. Tamarack: 

"Give me of your roots, O Tamarack! 
Of your fibrous roots, Larch Tree! 
My canoe to bind together. 



A TEEE ALPHABET 23 

So to bind the ends together 
That the water may not enter, 
That the river may not wet me T ' 

25. Red Oak: -Hu^watha 

Sing for the oak tree, 

The monarch of the wood! 
Sing for the oak tree, 

That groweth green and good. 

r>/, TT m — Mary Howitt 

26. Umbrella Tree: 

If canght out in a summer shower, 

How very nice 'twould be, 
To find a dry and sheltered bower 

Beneath an umbrella tree. 

27. &c. (And-so-Forth) : 

And-so-forth is a forest green, 

Of every kind of tree — 
"Walnut, linden, beech, and ash — 

That I could name to thee. 

Suggestions 

The teacher writes the alphabet on the lolaekboard, in regular order, 
where it can be easily seen. Each child then writes the name of the 
tree mentioned in his stanza after the correct initial letter. The 
name may be written before or after reciting, as desired. Do not have 
the trees come in correct alphabetical order, as this finding the place 
to write is a part of the fun. At the close of the fourth recitation, 
the alphabet will look as shown here: 



A 


Hemlock 





V 


B 


I 


P 


W 


Chestnut 


J 


Q 


Xmas Tree 


D 


K 


E 


Y 


E 


L 


Snowball 


Z 


F 


M 


T 


&c. 


G 


N 


U 





A FLOWER ALPHABET 

1. Daisy: 

Just listen, little blossom, 

Until I tell you why 
Such a wee and tiny flower 

Is named the ''Day's Eye." 

Because you're always shining bright, 

To greet us with a smile, 
And like the twinkling stars above, 

You're winking all the while. 

2. Rose: 

White with the whiteness of the snow, 
Pink with the faintest sunset glow, 

They blossom on their sprays; 
They glad the borders with their bloom, 
And sweeten with their rich perfume 

The mossy garden-ways. 

3. Jack-in-the-Pulpit : 

Jack-in-the-pulpit 
Is preaching to-day 

Under the green trees 
Just over the way. 



4. Pansy 



Little pansy-flowers 
Nodding in the sun, 

How you lift your faces up. 
Laughing every one. 
24 



A FLOWER ALPHABET 25 

5. Quaker Lady : 

The sweet Quaker Ladies stand quiet and shy- 
In their gowns of softest gray-blue ; 

And they never so much as raise an eye 

Though you coax them the whole day through. 

6.- Buttercup: 

I am the Buttercup, shining like gold, 
With a smile for the young, and a smile for the old ; 
When the little ones find me they dance with delight, 
As they fill up their aprons with buttercups bright. 
**Now see who loves butter!" they shouting begin, 
As they hold me up under each wee dimpled chin. 

7. Forget-Me-Not : 

When God had made the flowers. 

He gave each one a name. 
And, w^hen the others all had gone, 

A little blue one came, 
• And said in trembling whisper: 
"My name I have forgot." 
The Father named her once again: 
"You are Forget-me-not!" 

8. Violet: 

Down in a green and shady bed, 

A modest violet grew; 
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head 

As if to hide from view. 

9. Apple Blossom: 

Lady Apple Blossom 

Just arrived in town. 
Wears a light green bonnet 

And a snowy gown. 



26 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

Her pretty dress is — 
What do you think ? 
\ Five white petals 

Just touched with pink. 

10. Xyris (Yellow-Eyed Grass) : 

Softly sway, 

Softly sway, 
In the breezes light and gay, 

Yellow-eyes, 

Yellow-eyes, 
Bright as sunlight from the skies. 

11. Sunflower: 

Once upon a time, there was a lovely little golden- 
haired, brown-eyed maiden named Clytie. She loved 
the sun so much that all day long she would stand looking 
up at the beautiful ball of light. 

At last a fairy spied Clytie, and touched her with a 
tiny wand. At once her two brown eyes became one 
large eye that covered her whole face. Her yellow hair 
turned to a fringe of golden petals, and her feet took 
root in the dark earth. There, instead of the maiden 
Clytie, stood a great flower! 

*'I name thee Sunflower," whispered the fairy. 

And they say that to this day, all sunflowers turn 
their heads to watch the sun, just as Clytie, the first 
sunflower, used to do. 

12. Hepatica: 

When April wakens the blossom folk, 

And bluebirds are on the wing, 
Hepatica, muffled in downy cloak. 

Hastens to greet the spring. 



A FLOWEE ALPHABET 27 

13. May Apple : 

"Way down in the thick wood, and close to the brook, 

If ever you take the trouble to look, 

A plant you will see that shows in the light, 

A single blossom of purest white; 

Nodding and tossing its head in pride, 

As if it were queen of the woodland wide. 

That beautiful blossom, if left quite alone, 

Will be a sweet berry ere summer is gone. 

14. Yellow Lily : 

Squirrel and song-sparrow, 

High on their perch, 
Hear the gay lily-bells 

Ringing to church. 

15. Thistle: 

What is the pretty purple flower^ 

Can anybody tell? — 
The strong and sturdy purple flower, 

That Scotland loves so well? 

16. Nasturtium: 

Gay nasturtiums — yellow, red, — 
Blooming in my garden bed ; 
With your leaves of brightest greens, 
You are dressed as fine as queens. 

17. Iris: 

Iris, or the rainbow-flower, 

With still another name. 
Flower-de-luce, or sweet Blue Flag, 

The blossom's still the same. 



28 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

18. Columbine: 

I met a little lady, 

A stranger here, mayhap ; 
She wore a gown of green, 

She wore a scarlet cap. 
Graceful was her figure. 

Her manners very fine ; 
An airy, fairy blossom, 

Her name is Columbine. 

19. Knapweed: 

How surprised you'll be — 
It will make you whistle, 

When you learn that Knapweed 
Is just one kind of thistle. 

20. GOLDENROD: 

Tell me, sunny goldenrod. 

Growing everywhere, 
Did fairies come from fairyland 

To make the dress you wear? 

21. Orange: 

Orange blooms make oranges. 
And oranges, you know. 

Are just the very nicest fruit 
That any tree can grow. 

22. Umbrella Grass: 

Once a bee — a busy bee — 
"With a load of sweetest honey, 

Heard a tinkle — felt a sprinkle — 
(To her it wasn't funny.) 



A FLOWER ALPHABET 29 

* * dear me ! Woe is me ! * * 

She did moan and cry. 
"My honey bags! my money bags! 

How can I keep them dry?" 

But soon this bee — a happy bee — 

'Neath umbrella grasses, 
Is resting high — is resting dry — 

Until the shower passes. 

23. WiNDFLOWER: 

Welcome, windflower, little stranger, 
Fear no harm, and fear no danger. 
We are glad to see you, dear, 
For you say that May is here. 
Now the snow is wholly gone, 
Now the grass is coming on — 
The trees are green, the sky is blue, 
And we are glad to welcome you. 

24. Lilac : 

The sun shone warm, and the lilac said: 
*'I must hurry and get my table spread. 
For if I am slow, and dinner late, 
My friends, the bees, will have to wait." 
So delicate lavender glass she brought. 
And the daintiest dishes ever bought. 
Purple tinted, and all complete. 
And she filled each cup with honey sweet. 

25. Zinnia: 

These are the quaint, old-fashioned posies, 

Round in form and bright in hue. 
That Grandma loves to give the children 

When she walks the garden through. 



30 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

26. Everlasting: 

There is one flower I love because — 

Its colors never blasting — 
It lives forever and a day; 

Its name is Everlasting. 

27. &c. (And-so-Forth) : 

And-so-forth is a mixed bouquet 

Of many kinds of posies : 
Cowslips, harebells, marigolds, 

Pinks, and sweetbriar roses. 

[This last is given by the tiniest child of all, who has a mixed 
bouquet. Instead of the flowers given in the couplet, he may use 
the names of the blossoms in the bouquet, indicating the different ones 
mentioned. At the close, he may .present the bouquet to a playmate, 
a guest, or to the teacher.] 

Suggestions 

Each child taking part has a picture of the flower about which he 
recites — or a real flower, if obtainable. The pictures may be secured 
from several supply houses, from seed catalogues, or may be sketched 
on paper or blackboard from illustrations found in botanical books, 
encyclopaedias, or the dictionary. 

The teacher writes the letters of the alphabet in correct order on 
the blackboard where all may see them easily. Then, before each 
child recites, he writes in the name of the flower he is to present. 
Do not have the flowers come in alphabetical order, as the finding 
the proper place for writing the word is half the fun of the Testation. 
Thus, at the close of 4, the alphabet will look like this : 



A 


H 


V 


B 


I Pansy 


w 


C 


Jack in the Pulpit Q 


X 


Daisy 


K Eose 


Y 


E 


L S 


Z 


F 


M T 


&c 


G 


N U 





THE CHRISTMAS TREES 

FOR EIGHT BOYS OR EIGHT GIRLS 

This exercise is for eight children. Each carries in 
either hand an evergreen branch trimmed with chains of 
tinsel and brightly colored papers, and on each branch are 
about a dozen little balls of cotton, hanging by short 
threads, tied firmly. 

The children at the seats begin to sing the little running 
air below to the syllable "La," clapping the time ever so 
softly and lightly. 

The eight girls run into the room from a hall, carrying 
a branch in each hand, on shoulders. They run about in 
a circle, halting in a straight line, facing front. 

Girls sing first verse, waving branches above heads, chil- 
dren listening. At each word "you," the girls nod to the 
different children in the room. 

Children sing air, clapping the time, and girls run in 
circle. In the middle of the air, they face about and run 
in opposite direction. 

Girls sing second verse, pulling off the cotton balls and 
tossing them down to the children, who may be allowed to 
pick them up. 

Girls run off, singing air to syllable "La." 

31 



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THE CHRISTMAS TREES 





3 2 1 




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This exercise requires 6, 10, 15, or 21 girls, according to 
the number of rows desired, when arranged as in diagram. 

34 



THE CHRISTMAS TREES 



35 



Each little girl wears a sack apron of brown cambric, 
trimmed liberally on waist, sleeves, and neck with fringes 
of green tissue paper, about four inches wide. On the head 
she wears a high, conical hat made of stiff paper, covered 
with the cambric and trimmed from point to edge with the 
fringe. It is kept on with a band of the cambric passing 
under the chin, to which a bow of the green paper is 
fastened under each ear. 

The pianist plays the folloAving little waltz air, each 
alternating time playing it an octave higher than written. 
If there is no piano, the girls hum the air while exercising. 



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CHRISTMAS BELLS 

FOR ANY EVEN NUMBER 

Children carrying the large red Christmas bells stand in 
two lines, facing each other, and sing this round several 
times : One line begins at the first of the song, and when 
they reach (2) the second line begins at the first. If 



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stores, may be fastened about the pupils ' wrists. 
After singing, they drill as follows: 
1. March toward each other, ringing bells. Meet at 
center, about face, and walk to sides. 

36 



CHRISTMAS BELLS 37 

2. March toward center, cross over, and advance to 
opposite sides. 

3. About face and return to original position. 

4. Advance to center, meet, and pass around each other 
without turning, back to back, and return to sides with 
backward steps. 

5. Those from ends of each line walk to center, and 
circle about, return to places. 

6. Turn to rear, march down sides and around to rear 
center, meet, and walk up to front in single line. 

7. Backward steps to center and close into circle. 

8.- All march forward four steps, then four steps to 
place. Kepeat. 

9. All march backward four steps, then four steps to 
place. 

10. Alternate children march forward, while remainder 
stand still. Return. 

11. Remaining children march forward, while others 
stand still. Return. 

12. Alternate children march forward while others 
march backward four steps. Return. 

13. Mark time. 

14. Alternate children march forward four steps while 
others stand still. Then as children come back others 
advance. Repeat. 

15. Alternate children stand still, while partners at side 
circle about those standing. 

16. Others now kneel while alternate children circle 
about them. 

17. Circle in groups of two, hands clasped and held high. 

18. March about in large circle. 

19. Run about in circle, ringing bells. 

20. Run here and there about room, then exit. 



THE WAY OF THE AUTUMN LEAVES 

FOR ANY NUMBER OF CHILDREN 

The children who are to give this song-play wear little 
pointed hats made of brightly colored autumn leaves, and 
sashes or sleeveless jackets of them. These garments may 
be easily made by pinning the leaves together, using the 
stems of grass stems for pins. Each child carries a branch 
of the leaves in each hand. If no autumn leaves are to be 
had, artificial ones may be cut from tissue paper, using 
reds, greens, yellows, browns, and orange colors. 

If teacher and pupils wish to add a little decorative effect 
to their autumn program, they could outline and color a 
blackboard stencil, put branches of autumn leaves in cor- 
ners and windows, and suspend chains of the paper leaves 
from threads stretched across the room from the picture 
moulding; all threads meeting at the center of the room. 
To make the chains, take threads two or three feet in length, 
string several leaves thereon, separating them by knots, 
placed some inches apart. Tie these chains to the cross 
threads. 

Invitations may be written on leaf-shaped pieces of 
drawing-paper, tinted in autumn-leaf colors. 

The whole number of pupils could give this song, each 
one wearing the leaf crown, hat, jacket, or sash he has 
made for busy work, and each carrying a branch. Or a 
select number may sing. In the former case, the children 
exercise in and down the aisles; in the latter, they enter 
from a hall or cloak-room, and stand in a line along the 
front. The motions are as follows: 

38 



THE WAY OF THE AUTUMN LEAVES 39 

First Verse: ''This is the way," wave branches back 
and forth. ' ' Lightly, lightly dancing, ' ' skip to one side with 
side steps. ''This is the way," wave branches. "So 
lightly, lightly dancing, " skip back in opposite way toward 
original places. "In rain and shine" — wave branches, 
skipping back and forth with side steps. 

Second Verse: "This is the way," wave branches up 
and down to floor. "Softly, softly falling," all face to 
left, bending over and waving branches at feet. "This is 
the way," face audience and wave branches up and down. 
"So softly, softly falling," face right, bend, and wave 
branches. ' ' The autumn 's frost, ' ' skip up and down aisles 
(or across front) with side steps, waving branches over- 
head. 

Third Verse: *'This is the way," sing more softly, 
dropping branches to floor, holding them rather listlessly. 
' ' Snugly, snugly sleeping, ' ' heads drooped to left shoulder, 
eyes closed, branches waved slightly, still holding them to 
the floor. "This is the way," heads up, branches raised 
slightly, then dropped languidly to floor again. "So 
snugly, snugly sleeping, ' ' heads drooped to right shoulder, 
branches waved ever so gently, with side-wise movement of 
the body. "Old Winter comes," gradually settle down to 
floor, singing last of verse more and more softly and slowly. 



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NATURE AND THE POETS 
Foreword 

There are two methods of using this series of quotations : 

1. Each may be made an impromptu exercise for Friday 
afternoon. In this case, the only preparation necessary is 
to distribute copies of the quotations among the pupils, and 
then place on the blackboard the calendar figures for the 
month, as illustrated in each instance. A pupil then 
advances to the blackboard, writes in the name of the plant 
or of the animal given in his quotation and then reads. At 
the close of 4, in each case, the list will appear as in illus- 
tration at the beginning of each month. 

2. A 'more complete way will correlate the stanzas and 
nature work by taking up the subject of each quotation for 
a few minutes' talk each day. At the close of the talk the 
subject of it will be added to the calendar for that month. 
The teacher need not prepare all this work. She can 
assign different topics for research on the part of the 
pupils, and let them prepare the talks. As Saturday and 
Sunday have been allowed for in the calendar each time, 
and a possible leap-year, on some days two different insects, 
or vegetables, etc., could be talked about, taking two that 
are nearly related, as the honey-bee and the bumble-bee, 
or the pumpkin and the squash. 

Encourage each pupil to make a notebook list of the 
different nature quotations found in the reading. This 
may lead to the pupils making some interesting statistics: 
Do poets use plant-names more than they do animal-names ? 

42 



SEPTEMBER 



43 



What is their favorite tree? insect? flower? How many 
different insects are they able to find mentioned by the 
poets ? How many grasses ? Reptiles ? 

At the end of the month's work, a review can be had 
by erasing all the names on the calendar, reassigning the 
quotations, and having them read and filled in quickly. 

The quotations need not come in the order given here 
for the month; single out and sort as desired. 



SEPTEMBER - 


-A MONTH OF : 


[NS] 


1. Bumble-Bee 


9. 


17. 


25. 


2. Dragon-Fly 


10. 


18. 


26 


3. Hornet 


11. 


19. 


27. 


4. Ant 


12. 


20. 


28. 


5. 


13. 


21. 


29. 


6. 


14. 


22. 


30. 


7. 


15. 


23. 




8. 


16. 


24. 





1. Bumble-Bee : 

Burly, dozing humble-bee! 
Where thou art is clime for me; 



I will follow thee alone, 
Thou animated torrid-zone! 
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, 
Let me chase thy w^avering lines; 
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, 
Singing over shrubs and vines. 



44 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

Wiser far than humaD seer, 
Yellow-breeched philosopher, 
Seeing only what is fair, 
Sipping only what is sweet, 
ThoTi dost mock at fate and care, 
Leave the chaff and take the wheat. 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Eumhle-Bee 

2. Dragon-Fly: 

Today I saw the dragon-fly 
Come from the wells where he did lie. 
An inner impulse rent the veil 
Of his old husk: from head to tail 
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew; 
Through crofts and pastures wet with dew 
A living flash of light he flew. 

— Alfred Tennyson, The Two Voices 

3. Hornet: 

Health that mocks the doctor's rules. 
Knowledge never learned of schools. 

Of the black wasp 's cunning way, 
Mason of his walls of clay. 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans! 

— John G. Whittier, The Barefoot Boy 

4. Ant: 

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedless eyes. 
Observe her labours, sluggard, and be wise. 
No stern command, no monitory voice 
Prescribes her duties or directs her choice; 
Yet, timely provident, she hastes away 



SEPTEMBER 46 

To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day, 
When fruitful summer loads the teeming plain 
She crops the harvest and she stores the grain. 

— Ben Jonson, Go to the Ant 

5. Honey-Bee: 

I see the despondent red man in the west, lingering 
about the banks of Moingo, and about Lake Pepin; 

He has heard the quail and beheld the honey-bee, and 
sadly prepares to depart. 

— Walt Whitman, Salut au Monde 

6. House-Fly: 

What! here again, indomitable pest! 

Ten times I've closed my heavy lids in vain 
This early morn, to court an hour of sleep ; 
For thou, — tormentor! — constantly dost keep 

Thy whizzing tones resounding through my brain. 
Or lightest on my sensitive nose, and there 
Thou trimmest thy wings and shakest thy legs of hair. 
— Thomas Mackellar, To a Troublesome Fly 

7. Butter-Fly : 

I saw two golden butterflies. 
That shone like sun in a thousand dyes, 
And the eyes on their wings that glow 'd amain 
Were like the eyes on the peacock's train. 

— James Hogg, A GreeJc Pastoral 

8. Weevil: 

"You slay them all! and wherefore? For the gain 
Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, 
Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, 

Scratched up at random by industrious feet. 
Searching for worm or weevil after rain!" 

— Henry W. Longfellow, The Birds of KilUngworth 



46 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

9. Clothes Moth : 

I had a beautiful garment, 

And I laid it by with care, 
I folded it close with lavendar, 

In a napkin fine and fair. 

But who seeks for fadeless beauty- 
Must seek for the use that seals 

To the grace of a constant blessing 
The beauty that use reveals. 

For into the folded robe alone, 
The moth with its blighting steals. 

— Margaket E. Sangster, Moth-Eaten 

10. Silkworm: 

When under the leaves of the Spanish broom 

The clear silkworms are holden. 
An artist each, in a tiny loom. 

Weaving a web all golden, — 
Fine, frail cells out of sunlight spun, 
Where they creep and sleep by the million, — 

— Frederic Mistral, Gathering the Cocoons 

11. Cankerv^orM: 

From the trees spun down 
The canker-worms upon the passers-by. 
Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown, 

Who shook them off with just a little cry; 
They were the terror of each favorite walk, 
The endless theme of all the village talk. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, The Birds of KilUngworth 

12. Flea: 

Great fleas have little fleas 
Upon their backs to bite 'em. 



SEPTEMBER 47 

^ And little fleas have lesser fleas, 

And so ad infinitum. 
— Quoted in August De Morgan 's Budget of Paradoxes 
1.3. Midge : 

The midges dance aboon the burn; 
The dews begin to f a ' ; 

While, flitting gay, the swallows play 
Around the castle wa'. 
— Egbert Tannahill, The Midges Dance Ahoon the Burn 

14. Mosquito: 

All the air was white with moonlight, 
All the water black with shadow. 
And around him the Suggema, 
The mosquitoes, sang their war-song, 
And the fire-flies, Wah-wah-taysee, 
Waved their torches to mislead him. 

- _ T — Henry W. Longfellgtv, Hiawatha 

15. Ladybird: 

Ladybird! ladybird! fly away home — 

The glowworm is lighting her lamp. 
The dew's falling fast and your fine speckled wings 

Will flag with the close-clinging damp. 

^ -, T^ — Caroline Sguthey, To the Ladyhird 

16. Katydid: 

Thou art a female. Katydid! 

I know it by the trill 
Tha;t quivers through thy piercing notes, 

So petulant and shrill. 
I think there is a knot of you 

Beneath the hollow tree, — 
A knot of spinster Katydids, — 

Do Katydids drink tea? 

— Oliver W. Hglmes, To a Katydid 



48 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

17. Death ^s Head Moth: 

Blind worm, and asp, and eft of cumbrous gait, 
And toads who love rank grasses near a grave, 
And the great goblin moth, who bears ■' 

Between his wings the ruined eyes of death. 

— Lord de Tablet, Circe 

18. Palm-Aphis : 

There's the palm-aphis, minute miracle. 

As wondrous every whit as thou or I ; 

Well, and his world's the palm-frond, there he's born. 

Lives, breeds, and dies in that circumference. 

An inch of green for cradle, pasture-ground. 

Purlieu and grave ; 

— Egbert Browning, A Bean-Stripe 

19. Blue-Bottle : 

Now the blue-bottle, reviving. 
Buzzes down his native pane. 
— C. S. Calverley, On a Distant Prospect of Making a Fortune 

20. Grasshopper: 

The poetry of earth is never dead; 
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun 
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead. 
That is the Grasshopper's, — he takes the lead 
In summer luxury, — he has never done 
With his delights ; for, when tired out with fun. 
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 

— John Keats^^ The Grasshopper and CricTcet 

21. Plum Curculio: 

That pest of gardens, the little Turk, 

Who signs with the crescent, his wicked work, 

And causes the half -grown fruit to fall. 



\ 



\ 



SEPTEMBEE 49 



Shall be seized and swallowed, in spite of all 

His sly devices of cunning and fear, 

For the Old- World Sparrow, his foe, is here. 

— William Cullen Bryant, The Old-TVorld Sparrow 

22. Firefly: 

Rain cannot quench thy lantern^'s light, 
Wind makes it shine more brightly bright; 

Oh, why not fly to heaven afar 

And twinkle near the moon — a star? 

— Li T'ai-po (lived 699-762), To a Firefly 

23. Ghost Moth: 

The low sun stares through dust of gold, 
And o 'er the darkening heath and wold 
The large ghost-moth doth flit; 

— Alexander Smith, Glasgow 

24. House Cricket : 

And you, warm little housekeeper, who class 
With those who think the candles come too soon, 
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune 
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass ! 

— Leigh Hunt, To the Grasshopper and Cricket 

25. Stag Beetle: 

To summon all who meadow, hill, and dale 
Inhabit — bee, wasp, woodlouse, dragonfly — 
To band themselves against red nipper-nose 
Stagbeetle, 

— Egbert Browning, The Last Adventure of Balaustion 

26. Cicada: 

The shrill cicada, far and near. 
Piped on his hi^ exultant third : 

Summer! Summer! He seems to say — 



50 l^IDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

Summer ! He knows no other word, 

But trills on it the livelong day; 
The little hawker of the green, 
"Who calls his wares through all the solemn forest 
scene. 

— Mrs. J. G. Wilson, A Spring Afternoon, New Zealand 

27. DORBEETLE: 

A shaded lamp, and a waving blind, 

And the beat of a clock from a distant floor ; 

On this scene enter, winged, horned, and spined, 
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledor ; 

While, mid my page there idly stands 

A sleepy fly, that rubs his hands. 

— Thomas Hardy, An August Midnight 

28. Locust: 

And clouds of gray green grasshoppers 

Flew up the way she went. 
And beat their wdngs against their sides. 

And chirped their discontent. 

— Alice Gary, The Water-Bearer 

29. Caddis Fly : 

Oh, stagnant ponds, where we could watch, 

Beneath the alder's shade. 
The caddis walk in shell-stuck thatch. 

The water-scorpion wade. 

— Songs of Luccia, Eemiimcences of Childhood 

30. Tiger Moth : 

A casement . . . diamonded with panes of quaint 

device, 
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, 
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked wings; 

— John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes 



SEPTEMBER 51 

Suggestive Questions 

(Consult a good modern dictionary, text-books, etc.) 

1. What is an insect? What is the spider? What is 
the difference between an insect and an arachnid? Name 
other arachnids. What are the different stages of an in- 
sect 's transformations ? 

2. What is a bee ? Names of different kinds — humble- 
bee, solitary bee, honey-bee, and so on. Study the quota- 
tion from Emerson for descriptive phrases — ''zig-zag 
steerer," ''thy wavering lines," "yellow-breeched philoso- 
pher." Read the whole poem. Why is he a philosopher? 
(Because of the truth of the last four lines in this quota- 
tion.) Whitman's statement about the honey-bee is dupli- 
cated in "Hiawatha." Is it true that the honey-bee goes 
with the advance of civilization? 

3. Difference between wasps and hornets? (A hornet 
is a large, strong wasp.) Different kinds of hornets — 
the white-faced is also the yellow- jacket. Is Whittier cor- 
rect in calling the wasp a mason, and the hornet an 
architect ? Are they useful ? 

4. Read a description of the dragon-fly. Is Tennyson 
right in speaking of its coming from a "well"? (By this 
he means any form of water, probably a pond.) Does the 
pupa "rend the veil of its old husk" when emerging with 
wings? Are they useful? 

5. Where did Ben Jonson get the idea for these lines 
on the ant ? Why is the ant the emblem of thrift ? Name 
some different kinds of ants. Are they useful ? 

6. Were you ever kept awake by a tormenting house-fly ? 
Is the poet 's description a good one ? Difference between 
house-fly and blue-bottle. Are they useful? 

7. Various kinds of butterflies — peacock, swallowtail, 



52 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

cabbage, Aphrodite, monarch, phaeton, different colored 
admirals, tortoise-shell, Ursula, and so on. What other 
butterfly quotations can you find? What is. a caterpillar? 
Called ^'hutter-^y^' probably from the color of the yellow 
species. Are they useful? 

8. What kind of an insect is a weevil? (Snout beetle.) 
Name some different kinds of weevils. Are they harmless ? 

9. Difference between butterfly and moth. Different 
kinds of moths — hawk-moth, regal moth, codling moth, 
cabbage moth, clothes moth, gipsy moth, flour moth, and 
hundreds of others. In some cases, it is difficult to ascer- 
tain whether the insect is a moth or a butterfly — as the 
skipper. Are any species useful? What is the larval 
stage called? The poets have rarely named any species 
of butterfly, but they have frequently distinguished between 
different kinds of moths. 

10. What is a silkworm? Does the larva form develop 
into a moth or a butterfly ? Different kinds of silkworms. 
What is the natural color of the cocoon? What is their 
favorite food ? In the quotation, what is meant by ' ' Spanish 
broom"? (Consult Webster's under ''Spanish.") 

11. Difference between silkworm and cankerworm. What 
is another name for the cankerworm in the United States ? 
(Measuring worm.) What moth develops from the larval 
stage? (Geometrid moth.) Bring out the humor in the 
quotation? Why did the cankerworms thrive in Killing- 
worth ? 

12. What is a flea? Different kinds? Are they useful? 
Is there any truth in this statement that *'big fleas have 
little fleas to bite 'em"? (Bring out the fact that para- 
sitic insects are often the hosts for other smaller insects.) 
The flea is one of the insects that furnish the poet with 
humor. 



SEPTEMBER 53 

13. What is a midge ? If preferred, use this quotation : 

Meanwhile, there is dancing in yonder green bower 
A swarm of young midges. They dance high and low, 

'Tis a sweet little species that lives but one hour, 
And the eldest was born half an hour ago. 

— Robert, Lord Lytton, Midges 

14. What is the larval stage of mosquitoes humorously 
called? Why? Why will a coating of oil on the top of a 
rain-barrel of water kill the insect ? Have you ever heard 
the mosquito's ''war song"? What is their food? In 
England, mosquitoes are often called ''gnats." 

15. The ladybird is a beetle; its name means "bird of 
our Lady. ' ' Valuable because they feed upon other insects 
that are a pest, such as plant lice, cotton-cushiony scale, 
and so on. This beetle is also called "ladybug"; in some 
parts of England it is called : 

'^ Bishop, Bishop Barnabee, 
Tell me when your wedding be! 
If it be to-morrow day. 
Take your wings and fly away.'^ 

— SuffolTc Bhyme 

What is the rest of the jingle with which Caroline 
Southey commences her poem? Has the insect "fine 
speckled wings"? 

16. The katydid is a kind of American locust. It is 
named from the sound it makes. Do the female katydids 
make any sound? How is it done? Bring out the humor 
in the quotation. Read the poem. 

17. Death's-head moth — why named? It is one of the 
European hawk moths. Another quotation on the insect 
will be found in Hood's "The Haunted House." 

18. What is an aphid? Name some kinds? What are 



54 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

their enemies? Is Browning right in saying that one of 
these insects lives and dies on the same leaf? 

19. Relation of grasshopper, locust, katydid. Study the 
quotation line by line. 

20. Read a description of the plum curculio. Is Bryant's 
a good one? Is the Old-World Sparrow a success as a 
worm-exterminator ? 

21. The firefly is also called fire beetle. Read a descrip- 
tion of them, their manner of producing the light. What 
are glowworms? Lantern fly, lightning bug, wah-wah- 
taysee, and cucujo are other names. 

22. Read a description of the ghost moth. Why so 
called? Also called ''swift." Where found? Are they 
nocturnal ? 

23. What is a cricket ? Different kinds ? Called in imi- 
tation of its creak. Study the quotation carefully for its 
descriptive phrases. 

24. Study picture and description of stag beetle. Why 
so called? In America sometimes called ''horn bug." 
They are very strong, and can pinch quite hard — whence 
Browning's "nippemose." Their food consists partly of 
caterpillars and other soft-bodied insects, so *'all who 
meadow, hill, and dale inhabit" would be glad to band 
themselves against red "nippernose." 

25. Compare pictures of grasshopper and cicada. Cicada 
often called locust. Different kinds of cicadas. Where 
do the larvae live? Study the quotation. 

26. The dumbledor is a dorbeetle, a name applied to 
several European inseets that fly with a buzzing noise, 
similar to our June bugs. Study the humor of the quo- 
tation, in connection with the title of the poem. Who is 
Thomas Hardy? 

27. Read the description of Caddis fly and Caddis worm 



SEPTEMBER 55 

in Webster's New International. Then stud}^ the poem 
and particularlj^ the phrase *' Shell-stuck thatch.'' What 
is a water-scorpion? 

28. Description of tiger-moth found under heading 
' ' Apatensis. ' ' How would a stained-glass window resemble 
a tiger moth's wings? Is the comparison good? A poet 
must be quick to see such likenesses between things so 
widely different as a moth and a window. 



OGTOBER — A MONTH OF FRUITS 



1, Orange 


9. 


17. 


25. 


2. Apple 


10. 


18. 


26. 


3. Cherry 


11. 


19. 


27. 


4. Grape 


12. 


20. 


.28. 


5. 


13. 


21. 


29. 


6. 


14. 


22. 


30. 


7. 


15.. 


23. 


31. 


8. 


16. 


24. 





1. Orange: 

The short sweet purple twilight dreams, 
Of vanished day, of coming night; 
And like gold moons in the soft light 
Each scented, drooping orange gleams 
From out the glossy leaves black-green, 
That make through noon a cool dark screen. 

— William Sharp, An Orange Grove 

2. Apple: 

What plant we in this apple-tree? 

Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, 
And redden in the August noon. 
And drop, when gentle airs come by, 
That fan the blue September sky. 

While children come, with cries of glee. 
And seek them where the fragrant grass 
Betrays their bed to those who pass. 

At the foot of the apple-tree. 
— William Cullen Bryant, Planting the Apple-Tree 

3. Cherry: 

If it is a cherry year, 
It will be a merry year. 

— Old Bhyme 

56 



OCTOBER 57 

4. Grape: 

Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring 

his splendors, 
Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above 

them suspended, 
Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the 

pine and the fir-tree. 
Wild and sweet as the clusters that grev/ in the valley 

of Eschol. 

— Henry W, Longfellow, Evangeline 

5. Pear: 

The juicy pear 
Lies, in soft profusion, scattered round. 
A various sweetness swells the gentle race, 
By Nature's all-refining hand prepared; 
Of tempered sun, and water, earth, and air, 
In ever-changing composition mixed. 

— James Thomson, The Seasons 

6. Barberry: 

Through the green lanes of the country, 
Where the tangled barberry-bushes, 
Hang their tufts of crimson berries 
Over stone walls gray with mosses. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, Hiawatha 

7. Blueberry: 

On the next day of his fasting 
By the river's brink he wandered, 
Through the Muskoday, the meadow; 
Saw the wild rice, Mahnomonee, 
Saw the blueberry, Meenahga. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, Hiawatha 



58 f-riCay afternoon entertainments 

8. Mulberry: 

And by and by, when the flowers grow few, • 

And the fruits are dwindling and small to view, — 
Out she comes in her matron grace, 
With the purple berries of her race ; 
Full of plenty from root to crown. 
Showering plenty her feet adown. 
While far overhead hang gorgeously 
Large, luscious berries of sanguine dye ; 

For the best grows highest, always highest, 

Upon the mulberry tree. 

— Dinah M. Mulock, The Mulberry Tree 

9. Pineapple: 

The prince of fruits, which some jayama call, 

Anana some, the happy flavored pine. 
In which unite the tastes and juices all 

Of apple, quince, peach, grape, and nectarine, 
Grows to perfection here, and spreads his crest, 

His diadem towards the parent sun ; 
His diadem, in fiery blossoms drest, 

Stands armed with swords, from potent Nature won. 

— Philip Freneau, Santa Cruz 

10. Nectarine: 

What w^ondrous life is this I lead! 
Ripe apples drop about my head; 
The luscious clusters of the vine, 
Upon my mouth do crush their wine, 
The nectarines, a curious peach, 
Into my hands themselves do reach. 

— Andrew Marvell, Thoughts in a Garden 

11. Peach: 

The purple plum, the grape the hand may reach. 
Vie with the downy-skinned and blushing peach. 

— Nicholas Michell, Cdbul 



OCTOBEB 59 

12. Plum: 

When shrinkingly the sun creeps up 
Through misty mornings cold, 
Then heavily the frosted plum 
Drops downward on the mold. 

— Dinah M. Mulock, October 

13. Apricot: 

The apricots upon the sunny wall, 
Unfold their pale-pink blossoms, promise fair 
Of luscious fruit whose mellow autumn's growth 
To April's aid shall owe the harvest of the year. 

— AsTLEY H. Baldwin, April 

14. Cranberry: 

Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog. 
And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog; 
Pike and perch from the Suncook taken; 
Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken; 

— John G. Whittier, The Bridal of FennacooTc 

15. Cashew: 

The conic-formed cashew, of juicy kind. 
That bears at once an apple and a nut ; 
Whose poisonous coat, indignant to the lip. 
Doth in its cell a wholesome kernel shut. 

— Philip Freneau, Santa Cms 

16. Gooseberry: 

Now ripe are the goosegogs, I speak as a boy, 
I've still a fresh feeling that Time can't destroy; 
I see not, I care not, for French stew or fry. 
But I'm fond of a true English Gooseberry-Pie. 

— Anon., Farewell to Gooseberry Tie 

17. Watermelon: 

Its back wuz broad and shiny. 
Its stripes wuz dark and light; 



60 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

My mouf wuz boun' ter water, 

Ter see dat hibly sight ; 
I stop and try to lif her — 

It took a lot er spunk ; 
So I thump her very gently, 
An ' she answers back ' * ker-plunk ! ' ' 
Water-million, water-million ! you am de choices ' prize, 
De best I seed dis lib-long year wid dese here longing 
eyes ! 
— Mrs. Sarah A. Peple, Ode ter de Furs' Water-Million 

18. FiG: 

My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought : 
Presents the downy peach ; the shining plum. 
With a fine bluish mist of animals 
Clouded; the ruddy nectarine; and, dark 
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig. 

— James Thomson, The Seasons — Autumn 

19. Blackberry: 

and blackberries, 
Redden amid the tangled bramble-canes. 
Whose juicy stores, ungrudgingly afford 
A banquet for the blackbird. 

— Anon., September 

20. Dewberry: 

and the briers trailed o'er many a stone 
Dropping dewberries, black-ripe and soft, fit to melt 

into 
Juice in your hold. 

— Jane Barlow, By the Bog-Hole 

21. Strawberry: 

Hither, soon as spring is fled, 
You and Charles and I will walk ; 



OCTOBER 61 

Lurking berries ripe and red, 

Then will hang on every stalk; 
Each within its leafy bower, 
And for that promise spare the flower ! 

— William Wordsworth, Foresight 

22. Raspberry: 

Another bend, a sheltered deepening rift. 
And in the mountain's very heart they plunge — 
So dark the shade, the sun is lost to view. 
Great silver wattles tremble o'er the path. 
Entwined with clematis or begonia vines. 
And raspberry tendrils hung with scarlet fruit. 

— Mrs. Hubert Heron, 
From the Clyde to Braidwood (Australia) 

23. Pomegranate: 

Red-ripe as could be, 

Pomegranates were chapping and splitting, 

In halves on the tree. 

— Robert Browning, The Englishman in Italy 

24. Breadfruit: 

The bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare, yields 

The unreap'd harvest of unfurrow'd fields. 

And bakes its unadulterated loaves 

Without a furnace in unpurchased groves, 

And flings off famine from its fertile breast, 

A priceless market for the gathering guest ; 

— Lord Byron, The Island 

25. Banana: 

Beneath a broad banana's leaf, 
Perched' on its fruits that crooked hang, 
A bird in rainbow splendor sang 
A low, sad song of tempered grief. 

— Joaquin Miller, With Walker in Nicaragua 



62 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

28. Tamarind: 

Bear me, Pomona, to thy citron groves. 
To where the lemon and the piercing lime, 
With the deep orange glowing through the green, 
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined 
Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes. 
Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit. 

— James Thomson, The Seaso7is — Summer 

27. Papao: 

The breadfruit and orange to feasting invite; 
The luscious banana hangs ruddy and bright; 

The zephyr seems loaded with balm; 
The lime and the shaddock are lovely to see. 
The sweet, golden papao hangs on the tree — 

In the land of the coral and palm. 

— J. L. Kelley, Tahati : Australia 

28. Olive (or Medlar) : 

Plark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives 

Which, thick in one's track. 
Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them, 

Though not j^et half black! 
How the old twisted olive trunks shudder, 

The medlars let fall 
Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees 

Snap off, figs and all. 
For here comes the whole of the tempest. 

— Robert Browning, The Englishman in Italy 

29. Date: 

And the rich date luxuriant spreads 
Its pendent clusters o'er your heads. 

— Felicia Hemans, The Caravan in the Desert 



OCTOBER 63 

>, 

30. Myrtleberry: 

Last eve, I rode over the mountains; 

Your brother, my guide, 
Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles 

That offered, each side, 
Their fruit balls, black, glossy, and luscious, — 

Or strip from the sorbs 
A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous, 

Those hairy gold orbs! 

— Egbert Browning, The Englishman in Italy 

31. Prickly Pear : 

And end with the prickly-pear's red flesh. 

That leaves through its juice 
The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth. 

— Egbert Browning, The Englishman in Italy 



Questions 

(See Webster's for definitions of fruit. In this case, the second 
one is used) 

1. The citrus fruits all belong to the Kue Family: 
orange, lime, lemon, grapefruit, shaddock, citron, citrange, 
kumquat, tangelo, tangerine, mandarin. Study the quo- 
tation. 

2. Members of the apple family are: crab-apple, culti- 
vated apple, medlar, pear, mountain ash, shadbush, quince, 
hawthorn. There are different varieties of cultivated apple 
— Bellflower, Ribstone, Gravenstein. A poem by Phoebe 
Gary, ''Homesick," gives a long list of varieties. What 
is your favorite apple? 



64 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

3. The cherry, plum, peach, apricot, blackthorn, all 
belong to the almond family. There are different kinds 
of cherries, both wild and cultivated. What is the meaning 
of this rhyme? 

4. To what family does the grape belong? (Vine 
family.) Name some different kinds, wild and cultivated. 
(A poem, ''Catawba Wine," by Longfellow, gives a list 
of several.) For ''grapes of Eshcol" see Numbers 13:23. 

5. To what family does the pear belong? What is 
the difference between an apple and a pear? There are 
different varieties of pear — winter, bergamot, Catherine, 
russet, poppering, vergalieu, warden, and so on. Study 
the quotation. 

6. What family is the barberry? (Barberry family.) 
Name some relatives? (Map apple, twin-leaf.) What color 
are the berries ? In what part of Hiawatha is this quotation 
found? 

7. What family is the blueberry? (Blueberry family.) 
Name some other members. (Whortleberry, huckleberry, 
cranberry, bilberry.) In what part of Hiawatha is this 
quotation found? 

8. Mulberry tree belongs to the mulberry family. Other 
members are the banyan, rubber-tree, hemp, hops, fig, 
breadfruit, upas. Name some kinds of mulberry trees. 
Other uses for the trees. When does the mulberry put 
forth its leaves? Its fruit? 

9. The pineapple belongs to the Bromelia family, which 
also includes the pinguin, and the Spanish, or long-moss. 
How does it grow ? What gives the outside of a pineapple 
its peculiar markings? Is this quotation correct? Does 
the fruit have a crest? Is it armed with swords? Is its 
flavor a combination of several? What are some of its 
names ? 



OCTOBER 65 

10. Distinguish between a nectarine and a peach. To 
what family do both belong? 

11. Study the plum and the apricot. Name some dif- 
ferent kinds of plum — damson, greengage, bullace, beach. 

12. Cranberry belongs to what family? Named Cran- 
berry because stem, calyx, and petals are fancied to re- 
semble the neck, head, and bill of a crane. Where do they 
grow? How gathered? 

13. Study picture of cashew in Webster's New Inter- 
national. Other members of the cashew family are? 
(Sumac, mango, mastic, pistachio.) Is this quotation de- 
scriptive of the fruit? Which has the poisonous coat, the 
cashew apple or the nut? What is meant by ^'conic- 
formed " ? By" indignant to the lip " ? Is the nut edible ? 

14. Grooseberry belongs to what family ? Other members ? 
Difference between gooseberry and currant? AYhat is the 
gooseberry called in Hiawatha? Gooseberry is probably 
derived from the German word, kraus, crisp. 

15. Watermelon belongs to the gourd family. Other 
members? Why called ''watermelon"? What does it 
mean when a watermelon says "ker-plunk"? Who is 
supposed to be talking in this "ode"? 

16. To what family belongs the fig? (Mulberry.) Dif- 
ferent kinds? (Sacred, creeping, sycamore fig, caprifig, 
cultivated fig. ) How does the fig grow ? Is this following 
quotation true? 

The unboastfiil fig his fruit bestows 

Unheralded by bloom. 

— Francisco Barberini, Friends 
Study the quotation. 

17. Blackberry belongs to the rose family. So do the 
devrberry, raspberry, strawberrj^ Study the four quota- 
tions. Yfhat others can you find? 



66 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

18. Pomegranate belongs in a family by itself. The 
name is derived from pome, apple, or fruit ; granate grains. 
The city of Granada, Spain, is supposed to have been 
named from the number of pomegranate trees planted in 
and about it. 

19. Breadfruit belongs to what family? Read a good 
description of the tree in dictionary or encyclopaedia, and 
compare with the quotation. 

20. Banana family includes the banana, plantain, bird- 
of -paradise flower, traveller 's-tree, — all tropical plants. 
There are hundreds of varieties of banana, the yellow and 
the red being the only two kinds exported to northern 
markets. Have the plants broad leaves? Do the fruits 
hang crooked? 

21. Tamarind belongs to the Caesalpinia family, other 
members being honey locust, red-bud, Judas-tree, senna, 
divi-divi. Brazil-wood, and others. Family is named from 
Andrea Cesalpino, an Italian botanist. The fruit of the 
tamarind is a pod, which is used in making a sort of tama- 
rindade, and for preserves. The drink is very cooling. 
The reference to Pomona, in the quotation. (Pomona was 
the Italian goddess of the fruit of trees.) 

22. Papao belongs to a family of its own. It is a trop- 
ical fruit, soft, yellow, pulpy, which is eaten raw, boiled 
as a vegetable, pickled, or preserved. If preferred, the 
teacher may use the quotation on the pawpaw: 

Far away, 
Where the pawpaw its mellow fruitage yields, 
And thick, dark clusters of the wild grape hang, 
The merry laugh of childhood. 

— ^William D. Gallagher, Miami Woods 

The pawpaw belongs to the Custard-apple family. Fruit 
has a sweetish, banana-like taste. 



OCTOBER 67 

23. Olive family includes the ash, lilac, night jasmine, 
privet, and such widely different plants. The fruit is 
pickled when green or ripe, and eaten raw when ripe. 
Read a description of the tree. (If desired, the teacher 
may make the medlar the topic to be studied, or may 
study the medlar with the apple, using the part of this 
quotation referring to it.) 

24. The date grows on a kind of palm tree. Name some 
different kinds of palms. (King, wine, palmyra, palmet- 
toes, coconut.) How do the fruits grow? "Where? Are 
they to be found in deserts? Date comes from dactyl, 
finger, the shape of the fruit; or may refer to the hand- 
shaped leaf. 

25. Myrtle family includes the clove, allspice, eucalyptus, 
guava. The small berries are eaten when ripe, and are 
also dried for spice. (The sorh in the quotation is the 
fruit of the service-tree, a member of the apple family, 
which may also be studied.) 

26. Prickly pear belongs to the cactus family, the tuna 
and the Indian-fig being kinds. Other members of the 
cactus family have edible fruits, as the saguaro. 



.NOVEMBER — A MONTH OF VEGETABLES 



1. Onion 


9. 


17. 


25 


2. Turnip 


10. 


18. 


26 


3. Corn 


11. 


19. 


27 


4. Parsley 


12. 


20. 


28 


5. 


13. 


21. 


29 


6. 


14. 


22. 


30 


7. 


15. 


23. 




8. 


16. 


24. 





1. Onion: 

And if the boy have not a woman's gift, 
To rain a shower of commanded tears, 
An onion will do well for such a shift, 
Which, in a napkin being close convey 'd. 
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye. 

— Taming of the Shrew, Introduction, Scene 1 

2. Turnip: 

Bent low, by autumn's wind and rain, through husks 

that, dry and sere, 
Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the 

yellow ear; 
Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant 

fold. 
And glistened in the slanting light, the pumpkin's 

sphere of gold. 

— John G. Whittier, The HusTcers 

3. Corn: 

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard! 

Heap high the golden corn! 
No richer gift has Autumn poured 

From out her lavish horn ! 

— John G. Whittier, The Corn Song 

68 



NOVEMBER 69 

4. Parsley : 

Nothing stings 
Fried liver out of its monotony 
Of richness like a root of fennel chopped 
Fine with parsley; parsley sprigs, I said — 
Was there need I should say ''and fennel, too"? 

— EoRERT Browning, The Bwg and the Boole 

5. Radish: 

And the garden-beds, as smooth as a counterpane is 
• laid, 

Were dotted and striped with green where the peas 
and radishes grew ; 

— Bayard Taylor, The EoUy-Tree 

6. Fennel: 

Above the lowiy plants it towers. 

The fennel, with its yellow flowers, 

And in an earlier age than ours 

Was gifted with the wondrous powers — 

Lost vision to restore. 
It gave new strength, and fearless mood, 
And gladiators, fierce and rude, 
Mingled it in their daily food; 
And he who battled and subdued, 

A wreath of fennel wore. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, The Goblet of Life 

7. White Potato: 

The Indian corn-ears, prodigal of yield. 
The golden pumpkin, nugget of the field, 
The merriest-eyed potatoes, nursed in gloom, 
Just resurrected from their cradle-tomb; 
The very best the farmer's land had grown. 
They brought to this menagerie of their own. 

— Will Carleton, The County Fair 



70 miDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

8. Lettuce: 

You have but trifled with our homely salad, 
But dallied with a single lettuce-leaf ; 
Not eaten anything. 

— Alfred Tennyson, The Falcon 

9. Mushroom: 

And it delighteth me 
To have the mushroom push his round head through 

The dry and brittle stubble, as I pass, 
His smooth and shining coat, half rose, half fawri. 

But just put on. 

— Alice Gary, A Thanksgiving 

10. Pumpkin: 

If fresh meat be wanting, to fill up our dish. 
We have carrots and pumpkins and turnips and fish ! 
And is there a mind for a delicate dish. 
We repair to the clam banks, and there we catch fish ! 
Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies. 
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies. 
We have pumpkins at morning, and pumpkins at noon. 
If it was not for pumpkins we should be undone. 
— Unknown (First Verses Written by an American Colonist) 

11. Garlic: 

And, most, 
dear actors, eat no onions, nor garlic, for we are to 
utter sweet. breath; and I do not doubt but to hear 
them say, it is a sweet comedy. 

— Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene 1 

12. RamsON: 

Eat leeks in Lide, and ramsines in May, 
And all the year after physicians may play, 

— Old Bhyme 



NOVEMBEE 71 

13. Cabbage: 

Our Parson Wilbur (blessings on his head!) 

'Mongst other stories of ole times he hed, 

Talked of a feller that rehearses his spreads 

Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads. 

And, take my word for't, when all's come and past, 

The kebbige-heads '11 cair the day et last; 

Th' ain't been a meetin' sence the worl' begun 

But they made (raw or biled ones) ten to one. 

— James E. Lowell, Biglow Papers 

14. Rutabaga (Swede) : 

Underneath their eider-robe, 
Russet swede and golden globe, 
Feathered carrot, burning deep, 
Steadfast went in charmed sleep. 

— Charles Kingsley, The Poetry of a Boot Crop 

15. Parsnip: 

But my good mother Baystate wants no praise of mine ; 
She learned from her mother a precept divine. 
About something that butters no parsnips, — her forte 
In another direction lies, work is her sport. 

— James E. Lowell, A Falle for Critics 

16. Okra (Gumbo) : 

In a kettle put ham and potatoes, 

One chicken, and that not too small; 
"With gumbos and good red tomatoes, 

And beans, and some oysters, and all. 
Then hurrah, boj^s! hurrah for the Union! 

And the banner which waves from the wall ; 
Likewise for the parsnip and onion, 

Green corn and potatoes and all! 



72 FUIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

The gumbos, the greens, and the carrots, — 
Likewise for the monkeys and parrots, 
And corn and potatoes and all ! 

— Charles G. Leland, Green Corn and Potatoes 

17. Crook-neck Squash.- 

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North 
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth. 
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow frnit shines, 
And the sun of September melts down on his vines. 

— John G. Whittier, The Pumphin 

18. Carrot: 

I thought this Philip had been one of those 
Black ones of Spain; but he hath a yellow beard. 
Like a carrot's, as thou say'st; and English carrot's 
Better than Spanish licorice. 

— Alfred Tennyson, Queen Mary 

19. Celery: 

Here in the garden-bed, 

Hoeing the celery. 
Wonders the Lord has made, 

Pass ever before me. 

— Katherine T. Hinksgn, The Gardener Sage 

20. Cucumber: 

I am afoot with my vision. 

Weeding my onion-patch, or hoeing rows of carrots 
and parsnips — . . . 

Through patches of citrons, and cucumbers with silver- 
wired leaves; 

— Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman 

21. Cauliflower: 

A petty gardener spreads 
On level beds, 



NOVEMBER 73 

Kefuse stuff, and cauliflowers 
From it for the gentry grows. 

— GiosuL Carducci, L'Envoi 

22. "Watercress: 

She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread, 
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread. 

— Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village 

23. Bean: 

Now, now the mirth comes 

With the cake full of plums, 
"Where Bean's the king of the sport here ; 

Beside, we must know 

The Pea also 
Must revel as queen in the court here. 

— Egbert Herrick, Twelfth Night 

24. Pea: 

Sovf peas and beans in the wane of the moon, 
W^ho soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon, 
That they with the planet may rest and rise. 
And flourish with bearing, most plentiful-wise. 

— Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Eushandry 

25. Nettle: 

Cull it by the auld wa's, 
Cull it where the sun ne'er fa's, 
Stew it when the day daws, 
Cull the nettle early. 
— Scottish Ehyme (Directions for cutting early nettles in June for 
Cooking) 

26. Sweet Potato: 

They sat on the trunk of a fallen pine. 
And their plate was a piece of bark, 

And the sweet potatoes w^ere superfine, 
Though bearing the ember's mark. 



74 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

The British officer tried to eat, 

But his nerves were out of tune, 
And ill at ease on his novel seat, 

While absent both knife and spoon. 

Then Marion put his potato down 

On that homely plate of bark; 
He had to smile, for he could not frown 
While gay as a morning lark: 
** 'Tis a royal feast I provide to-day; 
Upon roots we rebels dine, 
And in Freedom 's service we draw no pay — 
Is. that code of ethics thine ? ' ' 
rt« p ^ — Edward C. Jones, Marion's Dinner 

Lord, I confess too, when I dine. 

The pulse is thine. 
And all those other things that bee 

There placed by Thee; 
The worts, the purslain, and the messe 

Of water-cresse, 
Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent, 

And my content 
Makes those, and my beloved beet, 

To be more sweet. 
— Egbert Herrick, A ThanTcsgiving to God for His House 

28. Beet: 

Here, here I live with what my board 
Can with the smallest cost afford ; 
Though ne'er so mean the viands be, 
They well content my Prue and me ; 
Or pea or bean, or wort or beet, 
Whatever comes, content makes sweet. 

— Egbert Herrick, His Content in the Country 



NOVEMBER 75 

29. Palm Cabbage: 

A ship whose keel is of palm beneath, 
Whose ribs of palm have a palm-like sheath, 
And a rudder of palm it steereth with. 
"What does the good ship bear so well? 
The eocoa-nnt with its stony shell, 
And the milky sap of its inner cell; 
What aiie its jars, so smooth and fine, 
But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine. 
And the cabbage that ripens under the Line ? 

— John G. Whittier, The Palm-Tree 

30. Asparagus: 

Oh, never may memory lose sight of that year, 
But still hallow the time as it ought ! 

That season the ' ' grass ' ' w^as remarkably dear, 
And the peas at a guinea a quart. 
— Thomas Hood, Epicurean Eeminiscences of a Sentimentalist 



Suggestions for Study 

(Look up definition of vegetable in Webster ^s, as regards culinary 



1. The onion belongs to the lily family. Some other 
members are the tulip, hyacinth, aloe, yucca, dog-tooth 
violet. Closely related to the onion are the ramson, the 
leek, the garlic, the shalot, the moly, the welsh onion. The 
quotation relates to actors, who are said to find still some 
similar aids for the ''enforcing of the watery eye.'* In 
Shakespeare's time boys played the female parts on the 
stage. If desired, use instead this folk saying: 



76 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

Onion's skin very thin, 
Mild winter's coming in; 
Onion's skin thick and tough, 
Coming winter cold and rough. 

2. The turnip belongs to the cabbage family, many 
members being used for food. Other plants of the family 
are cabbage, mustard, charlock, wallflower, shepherd's 
purse, lady 's-smock, cress, radish, candytifft, sweet alys- 
sum, stock, cauliflower. What is the difference between 
turnip and rutabaga ? 

3. Corn belongs to the grass family. What is its other 
name? (Maize.) Study the whole poem. 

4. Parsley belongs to the celery family, which contains 
many useful food plants, and some poisonous ones. Mem- 
bers of the family are fennel, cumin, anise, coriander, 
angelica, carrot, parsnip, chervil, samphire, hemlock (poi- 
sonous), dill, sea-holly, caraway, snakeroot, — over 1600 
species in all. The quotation is put into the mouth of a 
fussy lawyer who has more interest in what he is to have 
for dinner than in the murder trial. 

5. In William Shenstone's ''The School-Mistress,'' will 
be found this humorous reference to the radish: 

And pungent radish, biting infant's tongue, 

At one time a preparation of garlic, rue, pears, radishes, 
nuts, and treacle w^as supposed to be an antidote for poison. 

6. Fennel belongs to what family? Study the whole 
poem of Longfellow's. 

7. White potato belongs to the nightshade family. So 
do the tomato, the belladonna, bittersweet (European), 
henbane, tobacco, egg plant, petunia, mandrake, red pepper, 



NOVEMBER 77 

ground-cherry, jimson-weed. What part of the potato- 
plant is eaten? 

8. Lettuce belongs to the chicory family, which con- 
tains the dandelion, the endive, goat's-beard, hawkweed, 
salsify. Lettuce comes from the Latin word lactuca, milk, 
on account of the juice of the stems. Study the poem of 
*' The Falcon." 

9. The mushroom is a flowerless plant, and is classed 
with such simple forms as seaweed, mildew, lichen, puff- 
balls. There are many kinds of mushrooms, some edible 
and others highly poisonous. The kinds with an umbrella- 
like top are popularly called *' toad-stools." Some puff- 
balls are also eaten. If people would learn to know the 
different kinds of edible mushrooms, the high cost of living 
could be reduced greatly. Is Miss Gary 's a good description 
of a mushroom? 

10. The pumpkin is a member of the gourd familj^; re- 
lated to it are the watermelon, citron melon, muskmelon, 
squash, bryony, cucumber, gherkin, balsam apple, and luffa. 
Different kinds of pumpkins are the pie-pumpkin, the vege- 
table marrow, the summer squash. As pumpkins require 
but little care, it is not strange that the early colonists 
could always have a supply of pumpkins, no matter how 
weary they grew of eating them. (If desired, study the 
squash and the pumpkin together, using the whole poem 
of Whittier's.) 

11. The garlic belongs to what family? How do the 
onion and the garlic differ ? "Who speaks in this quotation ? 

12. Ramson is more like the garlic than like the onion. 
Look up the definition. (If preferred, the teacher may use 
instead the quotation on the leek in King Henry Y, Act IV.) 

13. How many kinds of cabbage ? Describe the common 



78 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

cabbage. What is its value as food? To what genus does 
the cabbage belong? 

14. The rutabaga is a kind of turnip commonly with a 
very large elongated yellowish root; — called also Swedish 
turnip and Kussian turnip. 

15. To what family does the parsnip belong? When is 
the plant poisonous ? To what proverb does Lowell refer ? 
Which state is the Baystate? What is meant by "her 
mother"? 

16. Okra belongs to the mallow family. Other members 
are hollyhock, cotton plant, marsh mallow, and abelmosk. 
What part of the okra plant is eaten? The poem is a 
sailor's praise of his fare. 

17. How many varieties of crookneck squash ? To what 
species do they belong? How do the varieties differ? 

18. To what family does the carrot belong ? The Eng- 
lish people did not wish their queen to marry a Spaniard, 
hence their wit behind his back when they learned that 
Philip had yellow hair. 

19. What is celery? How grown? What are some of 
the wonders a wise gardener would see all about him? 

20. The cucumber belongs to what family? What is a 
gherkin? In this poem on himself, Walt Whitman lets 
his mind wander where it will, and imagines himself going 
here and there, engaged in different occupations. In this 
quotation, he imagines himself a gardener. What kind of 
citron does he mean ? Do cucumbers have leaves that seem 
as though wired with silver? 

21. Cauliflower belongs to what family? Cabbage was 
once called cole, and cale, hence cauliflower, cabbage-flower, 
and kohl-rahi, a certain kind of cabbage that is mainly 
stalk. This quotation is from an Italian poet ; he is re- 



NOVEMBER 79 

marking that useful plants may grow from soil, ashes, and 
fertilizer that seems useless. 

22. Watercress belongs to Avhat family? How eaten? 

23. The bean family is a very large one. To it belong — 
the pea, clover, wistaria, gorse, broom, lupine, sweet-pea, 
indigo, vetch, laburnum, licorice, rosewood, peanut, coral 
tree, sicklewort, rose-acacia, sweet clover, and medic. There 
are different kinds of beans — field, lima, kidney, and string 
beans, with all sorts of names. When is Twelfth Night? 
This poem refers to the placing of a bean and a pea in 
the cake, and whoever got the piece containing the bean 
became the king of the evening's sport, while the one who 
got the pea became the queen. 

24. To what family does the pea belong? This verse is 
one of the old weather-sayings about plants. Have you 
ever heard of others ? 

25. The nettle family is not so large as some others. 
Members are the nettles of all kinds, the artillery plant, 
the richweed, the wall-pellitory, the ramie. Young nettles 
are used as greens in some parts of England, and this 
rhyme tells when to gather and cook the plants. 

26. The sweet potato is a member of the Convolvulus 
family, with the morningglory, bindweed, jalap, cypress 
vine. Tell the story of ''Marion's Dinner." 

27. Purslane belongs to the Portulacca family — so does 
the spring beauty. It is often called ''pig- weed," because 
swine are fond of it. Notice the quaintness of the poem. 
Herrick lived at the time of Shakespeare. 

28. The beet belongs to the goose-foot family, with the 
spinach, Good-King-Henry, saltwort. The mangel-wurzel 
is a kind of beet. Robert Herrick seems to have been fond 
of "his beloved beet." He mentions it in many poems. 



80 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

29. What is a palm-cabbage? In this poem, Whittier 
enumerates all the various uses of the palm-tree. 

30. The asparagus belongs to the lily-of-the-valley family, 
strange as it may seem. So do the Solomon 's-seal, the 
Wake-Robin, and the Clintonia. About 1600, "asparagus'' 
became ''sparrow-grass," but since 1800 has not been used 
by the educated. (If preferred, use this quotation for 
either spinach or endive, instead of the one on the 
asparagus : 

Which much you will mend if 
Both spinnage and endive, 
And lettuce and beet, 
With marigold meet, 

— John Gay, Becipe for Stewed Veal 

The marigold meant here is the pot-marigold, a member 
of the aster family, the heads of which are used to flavor 
soups. ) 



DECEMBER - 


-A 


MC 


1. Codfish 


9. 




17. 


2. Flying-Fish 


10. 




18. 


3. Herring 


11. 




19. 


4. Sword-Fish 


12. 




20. 


5. 


13. 




21. 


6. 


14. 




22. 


7. 


15. 




23. 


8. 


16. 




24. 



MONTH OF FISH 



25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 



1. Codfish: 

Cut off my head, and singular I am : 
Cut off my tail, and plural I appear; 
Although my middle 's left, there 's nothing there ! 
What is my head cut off ? A sounding sea ! 
Yv^hat is my tail cut off ? A rushing river ! 
And in their mingling depths I fearless play, 
Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever. 

— Thomas B. Macaulay, Enigma on the Codfish 

2. Flying-Fish : 

The startled flying-fish around us skim. 

Glossed, like the humming-bird, with rainbow-dyes; 
And, as they dip into the water's brim, 

Swift in pursuit the preying dolphin hies. 

— Epes Sargent, Tropical Weather 

3. Herring: 

It was in with the sails and away to the shore, 
"With the rise and swing, the rise and swing, 

Of two stout lads at each smoking oar, 

After Herring, our King! Herring, our King! 

— A. P. Graves, Herring Is King 

81 



82 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

4. SWORDFISH: 

It is a swordfish that hath wrought us this, 
Nigh ruining our venture. Yea, a fish 
Six cubits long, that hath for nose a beak, 
Bony, shaped like a sword, sharp like a sword, 
And hard as tempered steel; strong fins and tail 
That in its times of anger and attack 
Drive it like arrow through the waves. It hates 
The whale, mistook us for its enemy, 
And dealt us deadly thrust. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of Itholtal 

5. Salmon: 

But deep deep the stream in, 

I saw his sides a-gleamin', 
The king o ' the saumon, sae pleasantly lay he ; 

I tho't he was sleepin*, 

But on further peepin', 
I saw by his teeth he was lauchin' at me. 

— George Outram, The Saumon 

6. MOSS-BONKER: 

I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Pau- 
manok, quite still, 

I see ten fishermen waiting — they discover now a thick 
school of mossbonkers — they drop the joined seine- 
ends in the water. 

On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the 
water, lie the green-backed spotted mossbonkers. 

— Walt Whitman, Salut au Monde! 

7. PiLOT-FlSH: 

Soon comes amidst them the great grey robber-shark, 

His black fin hoist, like pirate's sail; 

A spear-blade gleaming as it cuts the blue. 



DECEMBER 83 

The little fishes fly, save one bold sort, 
Striped motley, with long snout, which is the slave 
And lick-plate of the shark, seeking for him 
Food, that the little fish may leavings eat. 

— Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of ItJiolal 

8. TuRBOT: 

'Tis true, no Turbots dignify my boards. 

But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords. 

— Alexander Pope, Second Boole of Horace 

9. Tunny: 

Mighty Neptune, may it please, 
Thee, the rector of the seas. 
That my barque may safely run 
Through thy wat 'ry region. 
And a tunny-fish shall be 
Offer 'd up with thanks to thee. 

— Robert Herrick, A S^ort Hymn to Neptune 

10. Dogfish: 

And ocean islands so small, the dog-fish tracking 

A dead whale, who should find them, would swim thrice 

Around them and fare onward. — 

— Robert Browning, Paracelsus 

11. Pike: 

Full of scorn was Hiawatha 
When he saw the fish rise upward, 
Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, 
Coming nearer, nearer to him, 
And he shouted through the water, 
''Esa! esa! shame upon you! 
You are but the pike, Kenozha, 
You are not the fish I wanted, 
You are not the King of Fishes!" 

— Henry W. Longfellow, HiawatJia 



g4 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

12. Carp: 

Our plenteous streams a various race supply, 
The bright-eyed perch, with fins of Tyrian dye. 
The silver eel, in shining volume rolled. 
The yellow carp, in scales bedropped with gold, 
Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains. 
And pikes, the tyrants of the watery plains. 

— Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest 

13. Pickerel: 

A pickerel lay by an old log bridge. 

Where the moss grew low in the midmost panel. 

And he cocked his eye at a passing midge. 
And waved his fins as he watched the channel. 

— Ernest McGaefey, Out-Doors 

14. Shad: 

And the aronia by the river 

Lighted up the swarming shad. 
And the bulging nets swept shoreward 

With their silver-sided haul. 

— John G. Whittier, The Sycamores 

15. Sole: 

Be patient with black beetles, be courteous to cats. 
And don't be harsh with haddocks, nor rigorous with 

rats; 
Don't speak of ''blind-man's holiday" if e'er you 

meet a mole. 
And if you have a frying pan, don't show it to a sole. 
— ■ J. Ashby-Sterry, a Secular Lesson 

16. Grayling: 

I wind about, and in and out. 

With here a blossom sailing. 
And here and there a lusty trout, 

And here and there a grayling. 

— Lord Tennyson, Song of the Broolc 



DECEMBER ^ g5 

17. Sting-Ray : 

The world below the brine ; 

Forests at the bottom of the sea, — the branches and 

leaves, 
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy 

sea-leopard, and the sting-ray. 

— WxVLT Whitman, TJie World Below the Brine 

18. Eel: 

The morn when first it thunders in March, 
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say. 

— Egbert Browning, Old Pictures in Florence 

19. BoNiTO: 

And gay bonitos in their beauty glide, 
With arrowy speed in close pursuit, 
They through the azure waters shoot ; 

— Robert Southey, Oliver Newman 

20. Sea-Horse: 

Sea-minnow with this pony's crest, 

Just one of Amphitrite's toys. 
With which her sea-sprites coax to rest. 

The little sleepy Triton boys. 

— Anon., The Sea-Horse 

21. MUSKELLUNGE: 

Then all at once a mighty fish upsprings. 
The rod bends double and the bright reel sings, 
As from the depths a giant muskellunge 
Vaults and vanishes with a sudden plunge. 

— Ernest McGaffey, Death of the Mushellunge 

22. Sturgeon: 

With sweeping tail and quivering fin 
Through the wave the sturgeon flew, 

And, like the heaven-shot javelin. 
He sprung above the waters blue. 



86 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

Instant as the star-fall light, 

He plunged him in the deep again, ^. 

But left an arch of silver bright, 

The rainbow of the moony main. 

— Joseph EoDMAN Deake, The Culprit Fay 

23. Trout: 

Where the pools are bright and deep, 
Where the gray trout lies asleep, 
Up the river and o'er the lea. 
That's the way for Billy and me. 

— James Hogg, A Boy's 8on^ 

24. Minnow: 

Pebbly beds, 
Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, 
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams. 
To taste the luxury of sunny beams 
Tempered with coolness. How they ever wrestle 
With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle 
Their silver bodies on the pebbly sand. 
If you but scantily hold out the hand. 
That very instant not one will remain ; 
But turn your eye, and they are there again. 

— John Keats, Minnows 

25. Gudgeon: 

Hist ! That 's a pike ! Look, — nose against the river, 
Gaunt as a wolf, — the sly old privateer ; 

Enter a gudgeon. Snap — a gulp, a shiver, — 
Exit the gudgeon. Let us anchor here. 

— Austin Dobson, An Autumn Idyll 

26. Goldfish: 

Restless forms of living light 
Quivering^ on your lucid wings, 

Cheating still the curious sight 
With a thousand shadowings. 



DECEMBER 87 

Was the sun himself your sire ? 
Were ye born of vital fire ? 
Pretty creatures, we might deem 
Ye were happy as ye seem — 
As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe, 
As light, as loving, and as lithe. 
As gladly earnest in your play, 
As when ye gleamed in far Cathay. 
— Hartley Coleridge, Address to Certain Goldfishes 

27. Mackerel: 

Or, another time, mackerel-taking, 

Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they 

seem to fill the water for miles ; 
Or another time, fishing for rock-fish, in Chesapeake 

Bay — I one of the brown-faced crew ; 
Or another time, trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, 

I stand with braced body. 
My left foot is on the gunwale — my right arm throws 

the coils of slender rope, 
In sight around me the quick veering and darting of 

fifty skiffs, my companions. 

— Walt Whitman, Poem of Joys 

28. Haddock: 

Or from the haunts where the striped haddock play. 
By each cold northern bank and frozen bay. 

— John G. C. Brainard, To Connecticut Eiver 

29. Yellow Perch : . 

Through the clear, transparent water 
He could see the fishes swimming 
Far down in the depths below him ; 
See the yellow perch, the Sahwa, 
Like the sunbeam in the water. 

— Henry W. LongfelloiV; Hiawatha 



88 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

30. Hammer-Head Shark: 

As we moved on, 
The dwellers of tlie deep, in the mighty herds, 
Passed by ns, reverently they passed ns hy, 
Long trains of dolphins rolling through the brine, 
Huge whales, that drew the waters after them, 
A torrent-stream, and hideous hammer-sharks 
Chasing their pre5^ 

— William Cullen Bryant, Sella 

31. Roach : 

If the sun's excessive heat 
Make our bodies swelter, 
To an osier hedge we get, 
For a friendly shelter ; 
Where, in a dike, 
Perch or pike, 
Roach or dace, 
"We do chase. 
Bleak or gudgeon, 
Without grudging; 
We are still contented. 

— John Chalkhill, The Angler 

Suggestions for Study 

What is a fishi YfLat is the whale? the dolphin? the pcrpoise? the 
lamprey? Why uot fishes? 

1. The cod family includes the common cod, haddock, 
hake, ling, whiting, tomcod, pollack, coalfisli, burbot, cusk, 
and red cod. Who wrote this enigma ? Go through it care- 
fully. 

2. The flying-fish forms a family by itself. Read a 
good description of their manner of flight. 



DECEMBER 89 

3. The herring family embraces the common herring, 
moss-bunker (also called menhaden), sardine, shad, milk- 
fish, thread herring, sprat, alewive. The common herring 
is an important food-fish. 

4. The sword-fish forms a family by itself. Read a 
description and look at a good picture of the peculiar fish. 
Has Sir Edwin Arnold described it well? Can you find 
anywhere that it has a particular hatred for the whale? 
''The Voyage of Ithobal" is supposed to be written during 
the times of the ancient Egyptians, and describes a voyage 
taken along the coast of Africa by Ithobal and the many 
wonders he discovered. What is a cubit? 

5. The salmon family is a large one. Members are the 
common salmon, dog salmon, humpbacked salmon, quinnat, 
whitefish, grayling, blueback, and the trouts — river, brook, 
rainbow, speckled, bull, charr, Dolly Varden. 

6. The moss-bunker belongs to what family? Accord- 
ing to Whitman 's description, what does the word ' ' moss ' ' 
probably refer to ? What is a winrow ? 

7. The pilot-fish belongs to the Cavalla family, vvhich 
includes the cavalla, jurel, runner, amberfish, pompano. 
jack. Why called ''pilot-fish"? Is it "striped motley"? 
Why found with the shark? In v/hat poem is this quota- 
tion found ? 

8. The turbot is a flat-fish ; the family also includes the 
flounder, plaice, sole, topknot, windowpane, halibut, brill, 
dab. 

9. Tunny belongs to the mackerel family, along with the 
comm^on mackerel, bonito, rabbit-fish, caro, eseolar, chub 
mackerel, pintado, Spanish mackerel, frigate mackerel. 
Tunny is also called horse mackerel. Who was Neptune ? 
Why offer up a tunny to Neptune? (It often weighs a 



90 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

thousand pounds or more, and is one of the largest fishes.) 

10. There are several families of dogfish, all being 
sharks. They are small. Some kinds are spiny, smooth, 
and spotted. 

11. The pike family contains the pickerel and muskel- 
lunge. All are American fishes, except the pike. Read 
''Hiawatha's Fishing." Which fish does he call the king? 
Some poets would have made the pike the king, as they call 
him ' ' tyrant of the watery plains, " " ruthless pike, " ' ' hard 
monarch," "greedy pike," "ruffian pike," "sly old pri- 
vateer," and such names. Does he deserve all these hard 
names ? 

12. The carp family embraces a large number of useful 
kinds of fish: minnow, common carp (brought from Asia 
into Europe), chub, bleak, shiner, gudgeon, roach, goldfish, 
dace, tench, bream, rudd, graining, fallfish, barbel, redfin. 
The leather carp is a domesticated variety of the common 
carp which has no scales; the mirror carp has scales in 
spots. (See Webster's.) Study other fish mentioned in 
Pope 's poem. Where is Windsor Forest ? 

13. To what family does the pickerel belong? What is 
the pike called in Hiawatha? The pickerel? Compare 
with Whittier's poem "Kenoza Lake." 

14. To what family does the shad belong? Do they 
swarm? The aronia is the chokeberry, a near relative of 
the shad-bush, which is named because it blooms about the 
time that shad run. At what season is this ? Is the shad a 
useful fish ? 

15. To what family belongs the sole ? Read a description 
of the fish. Why not show a frying-pan to a sole? How 
are the flat-fish flattened? 

16. The grayling belongs to what family? 



DECEMBER 91 

17. The rays belong to several families. Consult descrip- 
tions and pictures of devil-fish, sting-ray, eagle-ray, skate, 
thornback, electric ray, and so on. How are they flattened ? 
Why called sting-ray? How harmful? Where found? 

18. How does the eel differ from other fishes ? Different 
kinds? Use? What is your interpretation of the folk- 
saying quoted by Browning? Compare with: "thunder 
shall not so awake the beds of eels," Pericles IV, 
Scene 3. 

19. The bonito belongs to what family? It the descrip- 
tion a good one ? 

20. The seahorse belongs to the pipefish family. Who 
was Amphitrite? (Goddess of the sea.) The Tritons 1 
(Her sons.) 

21. The muskellunge belongs to what family? Where 
found? 

22. The sturgeon family includes the common Atlantic 
sturgeon, the sterlet, hausen, and the Great Lakes sturgeon. 

23. The trout belongs to what family? 

24. The minnow belongs to what family? Study the 
quotation carefully. 

25. The gudgeon belongs to what family? Where did 
the gudgeon exit? Why anchor? 

26. The goldfish belongs to what family ? Native of what 
country ? What is meant by Cathay ? t-^. 

27. Other members of the mackerel family studied? 
What is a crowd of mackerels called? What is the rock- 
fish? The blue-fish? 

28. The haddock belongs to what family? Study pic- 
ture. The black marks on the haddock are said by fishers 
to have been caused by Satan's fingers. He caught one of 
the fish, but as it slipped away Satan gave it two deep 



92 PHIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

scratches. At the same time he exclaimed: ''Ha, ha! 
Dick!'^ whence the fish's name. 

29. The perch family contains the true perches, sand 
darters, zingel, all of fresh water. 

30. Look at picture of hammer-head shark. The quo- 
tation from Sella describes the girl's journey through the 
sea with one of the ocean-sprites. 

31. To what family belongs the roach? Study other fish 
mentioned in the quotation. 



JANUARY - 


-A MONTH OF I 


5EA^ 


1. Gray Wolf 


9. 


17. 


25. 


2. Grizzly Bear 


10. 


18. 


26 


3. Zebra 


11. 


19. 


27 


4. Collie Dog 


12. 


20. 


28. 


5. 


13. 


21. 


29 


6. 


14. 


22. 


30 


7. 


15. 


23. 


31 


8. 


16. 


24. 





1. Gray Wolf: 

A shadowy beast is the gaunt gray wolf, 
And his foot falls soft on a carpet of spines 

"When the night shuts quick over coverts of firs : 
He haunts the deeps of the northern pines. 

— Hamlin Garland, The Gray Wolf 

2. Grizzly Bear: 

Coward, — of heroic size. 
In whose lazy muscles lies 
Strength we fear and yet despise; 
Savage, — whose relentless tusks 
Are content with acorn husks ; 
Robber, — whose exploits ne'er soared 
'er the bee 's or squirrel 's hoard ; 
Whiskered chin, and feeble nose, 
Claws of steel on baby toes, — 
Here, in solitude and shade, 
Shambling, shuffling, plantigrade, 
Be thy courses undismayed. 

— Francis Bret Harte, Grizzly 
93 



94 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

3. Zebra: 

Marvellous steeds 
Striped as a melon is, all black and white ; 
Flanks, muzzles, necks, and hams, pencilled and pied, 
Like a silk cloth of Sais ; these they said 
Ran wild behind the hills, but being broke 
Made gentle drudges. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of ItJwbal 

4. Collie Dog: 

His courtly ruff snow pure mid golden tan, 
His grandly feathered legs slenderly strong. 
The broad and flowing billow of his breast, 
His delicate ears and superfine long nose, 
With that last triumph, his distinguished tail. 
In their collective glory spoke his race. 
The flower of collie aristocracy. 

— William Watson, A Study in Contrasts 

5. Sheep: 

Never jumps a sheep that's frightened 

Over any fence whatever. 

Over wall or fence or timber, 

But a second follows after, 

And a third upon a second. 

And a fourth and fifth and so on ; 

First a sheep and then a dozen. 

Till they all in quick succession. 

One by one have got clear over. 

— Anon., The Sheep 

6. Giraffe: 

But most of all I marked 
That mighty wondrous brute, tall 
As thrice my stature, dappled like a pard, 
Yellow on white, with long, wide, shambling legs, 



JANUARY 95 

Hoof tufted tail, sloped withers, stretching neck 
Four cubits long, having flesh-horns on head. 
And limpid eyes. The gentle monster grazed 
In tree tops, with a dainty lip and tongue 
Culling gold balls from the mimosa tree. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of Ithohal 

7. Bat: 

And bats went round in fragrant skies, 
And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded ey^s. 

— Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam 

8. Camel: 

On my camePs hump I ride, 
As he sways from side to side, 
With an awkward step of pride. 
And his scraggy head uplifted, and his eye 
so long and bland. 

— William W. Story, On the Desert 

9. Flying Mouse: 

The eucalyptus blooms are sweet 
With honey, and the birds all day, 
Sip the clear juices forth : brown-grey, 
A bird-like thing with tiny fee"^ 
Cleaves to the boughs, or with small wings 
Amidst the leafy spaces spring 
And in the moonshine with shrill cries 
Flies bat-like where the white gums rise. 
— William Sharp, The Flying Mouse — New South Wales 

10. Hippopotamus: 

The hippopotamus, amidst the flood 
Flexile and active as the smallest swimmer, 
But on the bank, ill-balanced and infirm. 



98 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

He grazed on herbage, with huge head inclmed, 
Or leaned to rest against some ancient tree. 

— James Montgomery, Pelican Island 

11. American Bison: 

In these plains 
The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues 
Beyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp, 
Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake 
The earth with thundering steps — yet here I meet 
His ancient footsteps stamp 'd beside the pool. 

— William Cullen Bryant, The Prairies 

12. Chipmunk: 

The chipmunk, on the shingly shag-bark's bough, 
Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, 
Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a bound 
Whisks to his winding fastness underground. 

— James R. Lowell, An Indian Summer Beverie 

13. Lapland Reindeer: 

Their reindeer form their riches. These their tents. 

Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth 

Supply, their wholesome fare and cheerful cups. 

Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe 

Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift 

'er hill and dale, heaped into one expanse 

Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep. 

— James Thomson, The Seasons — Winter 

14. Dormouse: 

The dormouse squats and eats, 

Choice little dainty bits. 
Beneath the spreading roots of a broad lime, 
Nibbling his fill, he stops from time to time 

And listens V\^here he sits. 

— Christine G. Eossetti, Twilight Calm 



JANUARY 97 

15. Moose : 

A moose, slow-grazing went, 
Twisting his long, curved, flexile lip 
Now the striped moose-wood 's leaves to strip 
And now his maned neck, short and strong, 
Stooping between his fore-limbs long. 
Stretched widely out, to crop the plant, 
And tall, rich grass that clothed the haunt. 

— Alfred B. Street, The Moose 

16. Beaver: 

Come down to the lonely river 's bank. 
See driven-in stake and riven plank; 
'Tis a mighty work before thee stands 
That would do no shame to human hands. 
A well-built dam to stem the tide 
Of this northern river so strong and wide ; 
Look! the woven bough of many a tree, 
And a wall of fairest masonry. 

— Mary Howitt, The Beaver 

17. Rabbit: 

I see the rabbit upward bound, 
"With pointed ears and instant look. 
Then scamper to the darkest nook. 
Where, with crouch 'd limb, and staring eye, 
He watches while I saunter by. 

— Alfred B. Street, The Forest Walk 



18. Horse : 



Gamarra is a dainty steed, 

Strong, black, and of a noble breed. 

Full of fire and full of bone. 

With all his line of fathers known ; 

Fine his nose, his nostrils thin. 

But blown abroad by the pride within ! 



98 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

His mane is like a river flowing, 
And his eyes like embers glowing 
In the darkness of the night, 
And his pace is swift as light. 

— Barry Cornwall, The Blood Horse 

19. Ounce: 

The ounce and panther down the water's side 
Creep through dark greenness in the eventide, 
And at the fountain's brink. 
Casting great shades, they drink. 

— Egbert Buchanan, The Naiad 

20. LiON: 

Till near at hand the lion, lord of beasts. 
Lays muzzle on the ground, and roars a peal 
Of angry thunder, rolling round the hills. 
Hushing the frightened wilderness. Far off, 
His neighbor lions catch the thunder up, 
And with fierce answers shake the shuddering ground. 
— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of Ithohal 

21. Gorilla: 

In its dense shades. 
Lord of the gloom, there dwells a monstrous ape, 
Ugly and dreadful, in his strength most fierce, 
But man-like, fashioned wholly as a man, 
A wide flat face, small ears, a hairy crown, 
Nostrils of a black amoor, and human ways; 
Short-legged with mighty loins and arms that reach 
To touch his shin as he doth walk erect. 
For walk he doth, with woodland staff in palm. 
Most like a savage forester; the hand 
Short-thumbed, but framed to skilful purposes. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of Itholal 



JANUARY 99 

22. Jackal: 

The jackal troop, in gather 'd cry, 
Bayed from afar complainingly, 
"With a niix'd and mournful sound, 
Like crying babe and beaten hound. 

— Lord Byron, The Siege of Corinth 

23. Mammoth: 

There may we tread on depths of ice, 
That the hairy mammoth hide : 
Perfect as when, in times of old, 
The mighty creature died. 

— William Howitt, Northern Seas 

24. Cow: 

The very weeds were wilted, leaf and blade ; 
The Durhams stood and panted in the stream ; 
Deep in the pool we saw them slowly wade, 
Mottled with gold of many a sunny gleam. 

— Lloyd Mifflin, The Fields of Daivn 

25. Gray Squirrel: 

The gray squirrel watches the dead leaves whirl. 
That the sun no more shall nourish. 

High on a branch with his tail a-curl. 
Like a writing-master's flourish. 

— Ernest McGaffey, Morning in the Hills 

26. Eland: 

Afar in the desert I love to ride, 

"With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side : 

^ ^ ^ 

By valley's remote where the oribi plays, 

"Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest graze, 
* * * 

And the kudu and eland unhunted recline 

By the skirts of gray forest o 'erhung with wild vine ; 



100 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neigh 
Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray. 
"Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane, 
With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain. 

— Thomas Pringle, Afar in the Desert 

27. Rat: 

Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, 
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, 
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers; 

Families by tens and dozens. 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, — 
Followed the piper for their lives. 

— Egbert Browning, The Tied Piper of Hamelin 

28. Otter: 

And oft an otter swims the stream, 
A sleek swift head the waters wet — 

He spies the freckled trout a-gleam 
And bites them in the fisher 's net. 

— Mary Cuclaux, The Beturn to Nature 

29. Wolverine: 

' ' Once he leaped, and lo ! above him 
Bent the sky, as ice in rivers 
When the waters rise beneath it ; 
Twice he leaped, and lo ! above him 
Cracked the sky, as ice in rivers 
When the freshet is at highest ! 
Thrice he leaped, and lo ! above him 
Broke the shattered sky asunder, 
And he disappeared within it." 

— Henry W. Longfellow, Hiawatha 



JANUARY 101 

30. Seal: 

The seal and the sea-lion from the gulf 
Came forth, and crouching with their little ones, 
Slept on the shelving rocks that girt the shore, 
Securing prompt retreat from sudden danger. 

— James Montgomery, The Coral Islands 

31. WOODCHUCK: 

Now the gray marmot, with uplifted paws, 
No more sits listening by his den, but steals 
Abroad, in safety, to the clover-field, 
And crops its juicy blossoms. 

— William C. Bryant, Noon 

Suggestions for Study 

See "Webster's definition for beast. No. 2 is the one used here. 

1. The wolf belongs to the dog family. Other members 
are the dingo, dhole, domestic dog, jackal, different kinds of 
wolves and foxes. Study various kinds of wolves. What 
is a coyote? Another name for gray wolf? What is it 
the emblem of ? 

2. The bear family consists of several kinds — brown, 
black, polar, grizzly, Syrian bear, sloth bear. Study the 
whole poem, if possible. What is ''plantigrade"? 

3. The zebra belongs to the horse family, which also 
includes the donkey, quagga. There are several kinds of 
zebra. Study the quotation and apply to the description 
and picture of the animal. Is it a correct one? 

4. Collie is a certain breed of the domestic dog. Can 
you name other kinds of domestic breeds ? What is meant 
by his *'ruff"? ''feathered legs"? "superfine long nose"? 
"distinguished tail"? Is this a good description ? Use of 
collie? Is it an aristocratic dog? 



102 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

5. The sheep belongs to the ox family. Other mem- 
bers are the different kinds of domestic cow, the buffaloes, 
the goats, and the antelopes. Is a true character of sheep 
depicted in this quotation? 

6. The giraffe belongs to a family consisting of the 
giraffe and the okapi. Study descriptions of both. An- 
other nam^e for the giraffe ? Are the horns ' ' flesh horns ' ' ? 

7. There are several families of bats, found in different 
parts of the world. Read a good description of the bat. 
Different kinds ? 

8. The camel family consists of the Arabian camel, or 
dromedary, the Bacterian camel, the different llamas. 

9. The flying mouse is not a true mouse. It is a mar- 
supial, like the kangaroo, the opossum, the wombat, and the 
bandicoot. How does it fly? (See Webster's.) 

10. The hippopotamus family contains but the one large 
animal, though there is supposed to be two different kinds 
of them in Africa. Read a good description. Is the beast 
a good swimmer ? Why ' ' lean to rest against some ancient 
tree ' ' ? Sometimes called ' ' river-horse ' ' and ' ' behemoth. ' ' 

11. The bisons belong to the ox family. The European 
bison is also called aurochs. The American bison is usually 
called buffalo. The water-buffalo of India, the Cape buffalo 
of Africa, the short-horned buffalo or zamouse, are the true 
buffaloes. Are there any bison now living in America? 

12. The chipmunk belongs to the squirrel family. Other 
members are the woodchuck, or marmot, or groundhog, the 
different kinds of tree squirrels, the gopher, and other 
ground squirrels. Is the chipmunk a ground or tree 
dweller ? What is a shag-bark ? 

13. There are several kinds of reindeer, all belonging to 
the deer family. Other members are the moose, the 



JANUAKY 103 

American elk, the European elk, the red, fallow, musk, 
Virginia, mule, and various kinds of deer. The caribou is 
a kind of reindeer. Mention various uses of the Lapland 
reindeer. 

14. The dormouse family is a small one, consisting of 
several kinds of small squirrel-like animals. Read a good 
description. Is the quotation exact? 

15. The moose belongs to the deer family. Read a de- 
scription. Does the quotation show accurate observation! 
"What is the "striped moose-wood"? 

16. The European and the American beavers form a 
family by themselves. How do they make their dams? 
Why ? 

17. Originally the name *' rabbit" was given to a Euro- 
pean member of the hare family. In America it is applied 
to different kinds of hares — cottontail, jack rabbit, and so 
on. What is the hare the emblem of? 

18. Different breeds of horses? Gamarra was an 
Arabian horse. If desired, read Shakespeare's description 
of a horse in ' * Venus and Adonis. ' ' 

19. The ounce, lion, tiger, lynx, leopard, cougar, jaguar, 
and domestic cat all belong to the same family. In what 
w^ays are they alike? What is a panther? (See Web- 
ster's.) 

20. The gorilla is supposed to be the animal most like 
man. Different kinds of apes and monkeys? 

21. The jackal belongs to Vv^hat family? 

22. Mammoth, mastodon, African and Indian elephants 
belong to the same family. Read a good description of the 
mammoth. 

23. Different breeds of cows? 

24. Study the humor of this question. If desired, one 



104 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

may use instead from '' Hiawatha's Fishing" the lines 
regarding the red squirrel, or Adjiadumo. Other kinds of 
squirrels. 

25. The eland is a kind of antelope, which belongs to the 
ox family. Other antelopes are the oribi, gnu, gazelle, 
hartebeest, kudu, springbok, and many other African forms. 
The eland is one of the largest. Study all the animals in 
the quotation. If possible read the whole poem, found in 
*' Fireside Encyclopaedia of Poetry" compiled by Choates. 

26. The different kinds of rats, mice, the muskrat, the 
field-mice, and so on belong to the mouse family. Read 
the whole poem. 

27. The otter belongs to the marten family. The pine 
marten, wolverine, weasel, fisher, and polecat belong to the 
same family. What is the otter's principal food? Of 
what use is the animal? 

28. The wolverine is also called ''glutton." Eead in 
''Pau-pukrkeewis" lago's account of Ojeeg, the Summer- 
maker. What is meant by Ojeeg? (The Fisher.) 

29. Seals constitute several families. Different kinds? 
Manner of living ? Use to man ? What is a sea-lion ? 

30. The woodchuck belongs to what family? What 
familiar superstition about the woodchuck? What day 
is named for him? 





FEBRUARY - 


1. 


Land-Slug 9. 


2. 


Pinna 10. 


3. 


Octopus 11. 


4. 


Pearl Oyster 12. 


5. 


13. 


6. 


14. 


7. 


15. 


8. 


16. 



A MONTH OF MOLLUSKS AND 
CRUSTACEANS 

17. 25. 

18. 26. 

19. 27. 

20. 28. 

21. 29. 
22. 
23. 
24. 

1. Land-Slug : 

He would pore by the hour, o 'er a weed or a flower, 
Or the slugs, that came crawling out after a shower. 
— EiCHARD H. Barham, The Knight and the Lady 

2. Pinna : 

Up springs the spirits of the waves 
From the sea-silk beds in their coral caves ; 
With snail plate armor snatch 'd in haste, 
They speed their way through the liquid waste. 

— Joseph Eodman Drake, The Culprit Fay 

3. Octopus: 

When you secure your house-hold pet, 
Be very sure you do not get 
The octopus, or there may be 
Domestic infelicity. 

— Egbert W. Wood, Animal Analogues 

4. Pearl Oyster: 

Thou, bright pearl, excell'st each gem 
In proud Nature 's diadem, — 
Yet a captive lov'st to dwell 
Hid within thy cavern shell 
105 



106 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

Where the sands of India lie 
Basking in the sunny sky. 

— Remi Belleau, The Pearl 

5. Land Snail: 

The frugal snail, with forecast of repose, 

Carries his house with him where e 'er he goes ; 

Peeps out, — and if there comes a shower of rain, 

Retreats to his small domicile again. 

Touch but a tip of him, a horn, — 'tis well, — 

He curls up in his ow^n shadowy shell. 

He is his own landlord, his own tenant; stay 

Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day. 

Himself he boards and lodges, both invites 

And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights. 

He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure 

Chattels ; himself is his own furniture, 

And his sole riches. Whereso'er he roam — 

Knock when you will, — he 's sure to be at home. 

— Charles Lamb, The Housel-eeper 

6. CUTTLE-FlSH: 

at low tide these banks 
Are alive with lowly creatures of the deep. 
Sea-flowers, sea-worms, sea-slugs, and cuttle-fish, 
At flood the waves wash all. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of liliohal 

7. Ship-WoPvM: 

For some ships, safe in port indeed, 

Rot and rust, 

Run to dust. 
All through v/orms i' the wood, VN^hicli crept. 
Gnawed our hearts out while we slept. 

— Robert Browning, James Lee's Wife 



FEBRUARY 107 

8. Cowrie: 

A gentle creature grew 

Within this cell of pearly blue — 

How many centuries ago 

No seer can tell us. We only know 

It found life pleasant, moved, and took its ease 

By palmy island shores in distant Indian seas. 

f. . — William Canton, The Indian Cowrie 

9. Abalone: 

As in their shells the abalones keep 

Morn 's rosy flush and moonlight 's pearly glow. 

— Bayard Taylor, The Pine Forest of Monterey 

10. Music Shell: 

It bears 
Upon its shining side the mystic notes 

Of those entrancing airs. 
The genii of the deep were wont to swell, 
When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music 
roll'd. 
^ - y ^ — Thomas Moore, The Genius of Harmony 

white fishing-gulls 
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe 
Of nested limpets. 

Mn n n — EoBERT BROWNING, Paracelsus 

12. Giant Clam: 

There is a shell, 

Twin-valved, prodigious, white, with fluted lips, 

Russet outside, hides in the bladder-weed. 

Clam-like, the body of it fleshy, strong. 

The cup a cubit broad. This thing lurks there 

With open edge waiting what meat the spray 

Will waft it ; fed or handled, it doth close 

With grip of iron jaw. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of Itholal 



108 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

13. Nautilus: 

The tender nautilus who steers his prow, 
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, 
The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea, 
Seems far less fragile, and alas ! more free ! 
He, when the lightning- wing 'd tornadoes sweep 
The surge, is safe — his port is in the deep — 
And triumphs o 'er the armadas of mankind. 
Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind. 

■ — Lord Byron, The Island 

14. Scallop: 

With many sundry shells, the Scallop large and fair, 
The Cockle small and round, the Periwinkle spare, 
The Mussel, which retains that dainty Orient seed, 
The Oyster, wherein oft the pearl is found to breed. 

— Michael Drayton, PolyolMon 

15. Whelk : 

Who has not heard how Tyrian shells 
Enclosed the blue, that dye or dyes, 

Whereof one drop worked miracles. 

And colored like Astarte 's eyes 

Raw silk the merchant sells? 
# # # 

Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh. 
The sea has only just o'er- whispered! 

Live whelks, each lip 's beard dripping fresh 
As if they still the water's lisp heard. 

— Egbert Browning, Popularity 

16. MuREX: 

Along the quay where murex-fishers press 
The purple from the sea-shells. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Voyage of Ithohal 



FEBEUAEY 109 

17. Periwinkle: 

In winter's cold, barefoot, I run to seek 
For oysters and small winkles in each creek, 
Whereon I feed; 

— William Browne, British Pastorals 

18. TOOTHSHELL: 

In March I give you plenteous fisheries, 
Of lampreys and of salmon, eel and trout, 
Dental and dolphin, sturgeon, all the rout 

Of fish in all the streams that fill the seas. 

— FoLGORE DA SAN Geminiano, Of the Months 

19. Cockle: 

And like a blow is the thought of the little boat, 

By this on its homeward way, 
A tiny skiff, like a cockle-shell afloat, 

In the tempest-threatened bay. 

— Celia Thaxter, All's Well 

20. Clam: 

First catch your clams, along the ebbing edges 
Of saline coves you '11 find the precious wedges ; 
With backs up lurking in the sandy bottom, 
Pull in your iron rake, and lo ! you 've got 'em. 
Take thirty large ones, put a basin under, 
And deftly cleave their stony jaws asunder. 

— William A. Croffut, Clam Soup 

21. Common Mussel: 

When, glittering on the shadow 'd ground. 

He saw a purple mussel shell ; 
Thither he ran, and he bent him low. 
He heaved at the stern and he heaved at the bow, 
And he push 'd her over the yielding sand. 
Till he came to the verge of the haunted land. 



110 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

She was as lovely a pleasure-boat, 

As ever a fairy travell'd in, 
For she glow 'd with purple paint without, 

And shone with silvery pearl within ; 

— Joseph Eodman Drake, The Culprit Fay 

22. Horse-Mussel : 

He sank to the bottom, no more he arose. 
The Avaters forever his body enclose ; 
The horse-mussel clasped on his fingers and toes, 
All passive he suffered the scathe. 

— James Hogg, Connel of Dee 

23. Argonauta: 

I brought the baubles that he loved, the tiny gilded 

drum. 
The crimson-bannered host, that to mimic battle come, 
The Argonautie shells that sail in pearly fleet. 
And, in its pretty cage, the bright-winged paroquet. 

— Mrs. Lydia Sigourney, The Bereaved 

24. Edible Oyster: 

Think you our oysters here, unworthy of your praise? 
Pure Wallfleet, which do still the daintiest palates 

please ; 
As excellent as those which are esteemed most. 
Or those the Romans prized that came from Lucrine's 

coast. 

— Michael Drayton, PolyolMon 

25. Lobster: 

He comes to ye amidst the brine 

The butterfly of the sun. 
The man of the coat so blue and fine, 

With red thread his shirt is done. 

— Irish Eiddle, The Lohster 



FEBRUARY * HI 

26. Crawfish: 

Through the clear transparent water 
He could see the fishes swimming 
Far down in the depths below him ; 
See the yellow perch, the Sahwa, 
Like a sunbeam in the water, 
See the Shawgashee, the craw-fish, 
Like a spider on the bottom, 
On the white and sandy bottom. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, Hiawatha 
27. Hermit Crab: 

Queer little crabs are making their tracks, 
AYith dinners robbed from their neighbor's sacks, 
And stolen houses upon their backs. 

— F. CoAN, TJie Beach at HiJo Bay 

28. Barnacle: 

Or bolted fragment of some ship storm-breached 
And shattered — all with barnacles o'ergrown, 
Gray-crusted thick with hollow-coned small shells, — 

— Alfred Domett, New Zealand Scenery 

29. Shrimp: 

Some are rapidly borne along 

On the mailed shrimp or the prickly prong ; 

Some on blood-red leeches glide, 

Some on the stony star-fish ride, 

Some on the back of the lancing squab, 

Some on the sidling soldier-crab ; 

And some on the jellied quarl, that flings 

At once a thousand streamy stings ; 

— Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay 

Suggestions for Study 

What is a mollusk ? What is a ' ' bivalve ' ' ? Give some examples ? 
What are the univalves called'? A crustacean is commonly covered, 
not with a shell but with a crusty hard skin-like covering. Examples? 



112 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

The first twenty-four quotations refer to moUusks, the last five to 
crustaceans. 

i. What is a Jand-slug? How different from a snail? 
If desired, use this quotation : 

"O^er this he toils in silent corners snug; 
And leaves a track behind him, like a slug. * * 

— Oliver W. Holmes, Astraea 

In the first quotation, **he'' refers to the knight; in the 
last, to a critic. 

2. Pinna is a large bivalve moUusk. It has long, silky 
filaments, resembling roots, which attach it to the rocks. 
Other moUusks have this tuft of threads for the same pur- 
pose as the common mussel, but in the pinna, growing in 
warm seas, as the Mediterranean, the threads often become 
two feet long and are woven into cloth, called sea-silk. In 
the quotation, the water-spirits arm themselves to attack 
the culprit fay, who has been commanded by the fairy-king 
to catch a drop of water from the spray a sturgeon makes 
when it leaps. 

3. Octopus is also called ''devil-fish.'* Read a good 
description. Name means ' ' eight-footed. ' ' They are shell- 



4. Pearl oyster is not closely related to the true, or 
edible oyster. River mussels, conch shells, clams, and edible 
oysters often contain pearls, but the best ones are obtained 
from the pearl oyster. They are found chiefly about 
Ceylon, in the Indian ocean, though the Pacific and Persian 
gulf produce pearl oysters. How is a pearl made? (See 
"Webster's.) What is nacre? What is the lining of a 
clam or oyster shell ? 

They tell us that a tiny grain of sand, 
Caught in the opening of a sea-shell's maw, 



FEBEUARY 113 

May grow to be a gem without a flaw, 
Such as men seek for on the ocean's strand. 

— C. D. W., The Pearl 

5. Read a good description of the snail. Is it a bivalve 
or a gastropod? Use? Different kinds? If preferred 
use: 

I love at eventide to walk alone, 
Down narrow glens, o'erhung with dewy thorn, 
Where from the long grass underneath, the snail, 
Jet black, creeps out, and sprouts his timid horn. 

— John Clare, Summer Moods 

6. Read a description of cuttle-fish. Kind of moUusk ? 
(Shell-less.) Cuttle-bone and sepia ink. Relation to squid 
and octopus? Other sea-anjmals mentioned in the quota- 
tion? 

7. What is a ship-worm? 

8. Cowrie shell is what kind of a moUusk? Use in 
India? In the quotation, the cowrie shell was found in 
Ireland, being turned up by the plow. 

9. How many parts to the shell of an abalone ? How is 
the animal covered by it? Where found? Use? Use of 
holes in shell ? 

10. Read a good description of the music-shell, voluta. 

11. Peculiarities of limpets? Different kinds? Where 
found ? Use ? How is the animal covered by its shell ? 

12. Read description of the giant clam in Webster's, or 
an encyclopaedia. Where found? Use of shell? Differ- 
ence between it and the edible clams? Size? Farther on 
in the quotation, Sir Edwin Arnold, through Ithobal, 
relates the instance of a man being caught by one of these 
clams. 

13. Nautilus is what kind of a mollusk? Difference 



114 FEIDAY AFTEKNOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

between pearly, or chambered, and the paper? If pre- 
ferred, use Holmes' poem, "The Cham^bered Nautilus." 

14. Scallop is a bivalve. Peculiarities ? Use ? Kinds ? 

15. Whelk is a gastropod. Where found? Use? Some 
kinds found in the Mediterranean secrete a coloring matter 
that V\^as used by the Tyrians in dyeing silk. Astarte was 
a Grecian goddess of the sea. What is meant by the 
"beard" of the whelk? 

16. Murex is another kind of one-valved mollusk, which 
was a source of dye. 

17. Periwinkle is also called wrinkle. The American 
Tvinkle is a different mollusk. Read a description of both. 

18. Toothsliell is also called dental. Read a description. 
Is it bivalve or univalve ? Shape of shell ? In this quota- 
tion, not all the animals mentioned are fish, but the author 
has considered any water-dwelling animal a fish. Which 
are fish? 

19. What is a cockle-shell? 

20. Different kinds of edible clamps? IIow gathered? 
Difference between clam and oyster? 

21. Common mussel used for food? Yfhat is a mussel? 
Different kinds? In the quotation, the culprit fay finds 
an empty mussel-shell and makes a boat from it in order 
to sail out where the sturgeon is. 

22. What is a horse-mussel? 

23. Argonauta is also called the paper nautilus. Hov/ 
different from the chambered? Argonauta more nearly 
related to the octopus and squid than to the chambered 
nautilus. In the quotation, the sorrowing mother has gath- 
ered together the playthings her dead child loved. 

24. Different kinds of edible oysters. Lucrine is a lake 
in Italy, nov/ filled with lava. 



FEBRUAEY 115 

(The remaining five quotations deal with crustaceans.) 

25. What is a lobster? Value? How gathered? If 
desired, use the following : 

Or, another time, in warm weather, out in d. boat, to lift the lobster- 
pots, where they are sunk with heavy stones. . . . 

I pull the wicker pots up slantingly — the dark-green lobsters are 
desperate with their claws, as I take them out — I insert 
wooden pegs in the joints of their pinchers. 

— Walt Whitman, Poem of Joys 

And like a lobster boiled, the morn 
From black to red began to turn. 

HUDIBRAS 

26. What is a crawfish? 

27. Read a good description of the hermit crab. 

28. What is a barnacle ? Different kinds ? At one time 
it was believed that geese came from barnacles. 

So, rotten sides of broken ships do change 
To barnacles! O transformation strange, 
'Twas first a green tree, then a gallant hull, 
Lately a mushroom, now a flying gull. 

— Du Bartas 

The reference to the mushroom in the above probably 
implies the goose barnacle, with its leathery stalk. 

29. What is a shrimp? In the quotation, the water- 
sprites, after leaving their beds of sea-silk, hurried to make 
war on the culprit fay. This is a description of their 
various steeds. The "sideling soldier-crab" is the fiddler 
crab, which study. Later it is said: 

"And the crab has struck with his giant claw.'' The 
other animals mentioned are neither moUusks nor crusta- 
ceans, but different kinds of lower forms of life. The 
"prickly prong" is the prawn; the "lancing squab" may 
be the lancet; the "jellied quarl" is the jelly-fish. 



MARCH — A MONTH OF TREES 



1. White Oak 


9. 


17. 


25. 


2. Horse Chestnut 10. 


18. 


26. 


3. Live Oak 


11. 


19. 


27, 


4. Plane-tree 


12. 


20. 


28. 


5. 


13. 


21. 


29. 


6. 


14. 


22. 


30. 


7. 


15. 


23. 


31. 


8. 


16. 


24. 





1. White Oak: 

The bursting white-oak leaf, that looks in May 
A silver bloom, frosted the shooting tips ; 

— Lloyd Mifflin, The Fields of Dawn 

2. Horse Chestnut : 

Then gray hosschesnuts leetle hands unfold 
Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old ; 
Thet's robin redbreast's almanik; he knows 
Thet arter this there's only blossom-snows; 
So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, 
He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. 

— James R. Lowell, Biglow Papers 

3. Live-Oak: 

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, 

All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the 

branches ; 
"Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous 
leaves of dark green. 
— Walt Whitman, I Saw in Louisiana a Live-OaTc Growing 
116 



MARCH 117 

4. Plane-Tree: 

In the outskirts of the village, 
On the river 's winding shores, 

Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand the ancient sycamores. 

— John G. Whittier, The Sycamores 

5. Sassafras: 

And the sweet brown buds of the sassafras 
Could scarcely hide the blossom. 

— Phoebe Caey, Sugar-Making 

6. Camphor: 

Borneo here expands her ample breast, 
By Nature 's hand in woods of camphor dressed ; 
The precious liquid weeping from the trees 
Glows warm with health, the balsam of disease. 

— Luis de Camoens, The Indian Archipelago 

7. Linden: 

Here a linden-tree stood, bright 'ning 
All adown its silver rind; 
For as some trees draw the lightning, 
So this tree, unto my mind. 
Drew to earth the blessed sunshine from the sky where it 
was shrined. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Lost Bower 

8. Banyan: 

They tell us of an Indian tree 

Which, howsoe 'er the sun and sky 
May tempt its boughs to wander free, 

And shoot, and blossom, wide and high, 
Far better loves to bend its arms 

Downward again to that dear earth, 
From which the life, that fills and warms 

Its grateful being, first had birth. 

— Thomas Moore, To My Mother 



118 FSIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

9. Myrtle: 

Dark green and gemm'd with flowers of snow, 

With close nncrowded branches spread, 
Not proudly high, nor meanly low, 

A graceful myrtle reared its head. 

— James Montgomery, The Myrtle 

10. Catalpa: 

See how the fair catalpa spreads 

Its azure flowers in masses. 
Bell-shaped, as if to woo the wind 

To ring them as it passes. 

— Anon., a Rome on Staten Island 

11. Elm: 

For lo ! no sooner has the cold withdrawn. 
Than the bright elm is tufted on the lawn; 
The merry sap has run up in the bowers. 
And burst the windows of the buds in flowers. 

— Leigh Hunt, Joi/ of Spring 

12. Holly: 

The holly ! the holly ! Oh, twine it with bay, — 

Come, give the holly a song; 
For it helps to drive stern winter away. 

With his garments so somber and long ; 

— Eliza Cook, The Holly 

13. Laurustine: 

Fair tree of winter, fresh and flowering, 

When all around is dead and dry, 
Whose ruby buds, though storms are lowering. 

Spread their white blossoms to the sky. 

— James Montgomery, The Laurustine 

14. Strawberry Tree: 

It was a feast 
Whene'er he found those globes of deep red gold 



MARCH 119 

"Whicli in the woods the strawberry tree doth bear, 
Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. 

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ma^enghi 

15. Magnolia: 

Majestic flower! How purely beautiful 
Thou art, as rising from thy bower of green, 

Those dark and glossy leaves so thick and full, 
Thou standest like a high-born forest queen, 

Among thy maidens clustering round so fair ; — 

— Christopher P. Cranch, Magnolia-grandiflora 

16. Manchineel: 

the poisonous manchineel 
A7hich for its fragrant apple pleaseth thee, 
Alluring to the smell, fair to the eye, 
But deadliest poison in the taste is found — 

— Philip Freneau, Santa Cms 

17. Pine: 

Eound about the Indian village 
Spread the meadows and the cornfieldSj 
And beyond them stood the forest, 
Stood the groves of singing pine-trees, 
Green in Summer, white in Winter, 
Ever sighing, ever singing. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, Eiawatlia 

18. Eedv^'OOD: 

Along the northern coast, 

Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves. 

In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino 

country, 
"With the surge for bass, and accompaniment Ioav and 

hoarse. 
With crackling blows of axes, sounding musicalh^ 

driven by strong arms, 



120 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes, — there 

in the Redwood forest dense, 
I heard the mighty tree its death-chant changing : 
Farewell, my brethren. 
Farewell, O earth and sky — farewell, ye neighboring 

waters ; 
My time has ended, my term has come. 

— Walt Whitman, Song of the Bedwood Tree 

19. Beech: 

Though bush or floweret never grow 
My dark unwarming shade below ; 
Nor summer bud perfume the dew, 
Of rosy blush, or yellow hue! 
Yet leave this barren spot to me : 
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree ! 

— Thomas Campbell, The Beech Tree 's Petition 

20. Coco Palm: 

The feathery heads of the coconut trees 
So far away up that one scarcely sees 
The great brown nuts, which are hanging there 
Growing and ripening in hot clear air. 

— Graham L. Campbell, In a Palm Grove 

21. Almond: 

Sweet almond blossom, blooming ere the spring 
Hath well begun, — ere yet bleak winds and cold 
Have shivering fled, your flowers we behold. 

— S. Waddington, Almond Blossoms 

22. Shadbush: 

With clusters of the purest white 
Cherry and shadbush charmed the sight, 
Like spots of snow the boughs among. 

— Alfred B. Street, The Canadian Spring 



MARCH 121 

23. Hawthorn: 

The fair maid who, on the first of May, 
Goes to the fields at break of day. 
And waslies in dew from the hawthorn tree, 
Will ever after handsome be. 

24. Box: -Old Saying 

The holly hitherto did sway; 

Let box now domineer. 
Until the dancing Easter Day 

Or Easter's Eve appear. 

rt- . — Egbert Herrick, Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve 

25. Alder : ■' 

The alder by the river 

Shakes out her powdery curls, 

The willow buds in silver 
For little boys and girls. 

^^ . — Celia Thaxter, Spring 

26. Aspen : ^ ^ 

"By Kedron I stood, and the bright beaming eye 
I viewed of the pitying Power; 
Each tree bowed its head, as the Saviour passed by. 

But I deigned not my proud head to lower. 
Then sounded a sigh from the Saviour's breast, 

And I quaked, for that sigh through me darted ; 
* Quake so till I come,' said the voice of the blest. 
My repose then forever departed." 

— Bernhard S. Ingemann, The Aspen 

27. Walnut: 

By the pale, 
The moss-grown pale, of yonder paddock grows 
The teeming walnut, and the lingering looks 
Of wayside urchins armed with stealthy sticks 

Steal to its nut-crowned branches. 

— Anon., September 



122 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

28. Maple: 

Yet still on every side we trace tlie hand 
Of Winter in the land, 
Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, 
Flushed by the season's dawn. 

— Henry Timrod, Spring 

29. Mimosa: 

With flickering streaks of snnlight beaming through 
The feathery leaves and pendant tassels green 
Of bright mimosa, whose wee furry balls 
Promise to greet with golden glow of joy 
The coming spring-tide. 

— Mrs. Hubert Heron, 
From the Clyde to Braidwood (Australia) 

30. Dogwood: 

See how the dogwood sheds its bloom 
Through all the greenwood mazes, 

As white as the untrodden snow 
That hides in shady places. 

— Anon., A Home on Staten Island 

31. CeibA: 

Where, wearied with long travail o'er the deep, 
He landed (so they tell) and said the mass. 
Beneath a tall and goodly Ceiba-tree. 

— Henry H. Brownell, TJie Tor)!!) of Columhus 

Suggestions for Study 

(What is a tree? Difference between tree and slirub? What is a 
bush? In this month's work, both trees and shrubs have been used.) 

1. Oak, beech, and chestnut, all belong to the beech 
family. Different kinds of oaks — white, red, valonia, cork, 
swamp, scarlet. 

2. The horsechestnut family includes the American 



MARCH 123 

buckeye. The horsechestnut is not closely related to the 
chestnut. It was brought from Constantinople in the six- 
teenth century, and is now common in both new and old 
worlds. Called horse-chestnut because of the large size of 
the nut, or from the seed having been once used as food or 
medicine for horses. 

3. Live oak has evergreen leaves. Where found? What 
is meant by '^ uttering joyous leaves"? 

4. The plane-tree family is a very small one. The Ori- 
ental plane is called chinar ; the American plane is known 
as buttonwood, and sycamore. The European sycamore is 
a kind of maple ; the sycamore fig is a member of the mul- 
berry family. What is meant by ^ ' Occidental' ' ? 

5. Sassafras belongs to the laurel family. Other mem- 
bers are the bay laurel, camphor, spicebush, cassia, cinna- 
mon, avocado. Uses of sassafras? 

6. Camphor belongs to what family? Uses? 

7. Linden family includes the jute trees and the Amer- 
ican basswoods. Color of bark of linden? In England 
often called lime, a name properly belonging to a tree pro- 
ducing the limes of commerce. Meaning of the quotation? 

8. The banyan is a member of the mulberry family, 
and is a kind of fig. Read a good description of the tree. 
If preferred, use this : 

In the plains of Benares is there found a root that fathererth a forest, 
Where round the parent banian tree drop its living scions, 
Thirstily they strain to the earth like stalactites in a grotto, 
And strike broad roots and branch again, lengthening their cool arcades. 

— Martin Tupper, A Banian Forest 

A banian-tree, with countless dropping boughs, 
Earth-rooted. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, A Night of Slaiighter 



124. FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

9. The myrtle family includes the common myrtle, the 
clove, the allspice, eucalyptus, guava, rose-apple, and Java 
plum. 

10. The catalpa tree is an American member of the Big- 
nonia family, which also contains the cross- vine, the trum- 
pet-flower, the tua, the calabash-tree ; catalpa is an Indian 
name. Different kinds? If desired use: 

Here broad catalpas rear their head, 
And pour their purple blooms profuse; 

— Alexander Wilson, The Eural Walk 

And green catalpas, white with branchy flowers. 

— Alexander Wilson, The Solitary Tutor 

11. The elm family includes the hackberries and the 
American planer tree. Different kinds of elm — wych, 
slippery, wing, rock, English, American. 

12. The holly family includes the winter-berry, or black 
alder, Paraguay tea, or yerba mate. If preferred, use 
Eobert Southey's poem, *'The Holly Tree.'* 

13. The Laurustine is a kind of viburnum. Other vibur- 
nums are the snowball, black haw, withe rod, wayfaring 
tree, hobble-bush, and all belong to the honeysuckle family. 
The elder, the twin-flower, the European woodbine, and 
the buckbush also belong to the family. (The American 
woodbine is a relative of the grape, and belongs to the vine 
family. ) Laurustine is one of the earliest blooming shrubs. 

14. The strawberry tree of Europe is the true arbutus, 
the Madrono of the western states is a close relative. Both 
belong to the heath family, which also includes the trailing 
arbutus, the heather, Rhodora, bearberry, leatherleaf, win- 
tergreen, rhododendron, azalea. Kind of fruit? 

15. The magnolia family includes the tulip-tree, cham- 



MAECH 125 

pac, star anise. Different kinds of magnolias are the sweet 
bay, umbrella tree, evergreen magnolia, and large-leaved. 
If preferred, use : 

The rich magnolia, with its foliage fair, 

High priestess of the flowers, whose censer fills the air. 

— Mrs. Sigourney, Pocohontas 

16. The manchineel tree belongs to the spurge family. 
Other members of the family are the castor-oil plant, the 
manioc or cassava-plant, cascarilla-tree, chenille-plant, Para 
rubber tree. Read a description of the manchineel. 

17. The pine family includes a large number of cone- 
bearing trees: fir, spruce, redwood of California, cypress, 
hemlock, arborvitae, cedar, and larch. Different kinds of 
pine — white, jack, Scotch, yellow, black, Norway, red, — 
seventy-five in all. 

In strict society 
Three conifers, white, pitch, and Norway pines, 
Five-leaved, three-leaved, and two-leaved, grew thereby. 

— Emerson 

18. Read a description of the California redwood. What 
is meant by the death chant of the tree? Has anything 
been done to stop the destruction of these trees ? 

19. The beech family includes the oak and the chestnut. 
Different kinds of beeches ? Study the whole poem. 

20. The palm family contains over a thousand different 
kinds of trees. Some are the date, coco, nipa, talipot, areca, 
gebang, palmyra, royal, raffia, jaggery, wax. Read a de- 
scription of the coco-palm. How should the name be 
spelled? See Webster's for meaning of the name. 

21. The almond family includes the peach, apricot, plum, 
cherry, flowering almond. Do the blossoms or the leaves 



126 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

come first on these trees? If desired, use Sir Edwin 
Arnold's poem, "Almond Blossoms.'' 

22. The shadbush belongs to the apple family. Called 
shad-bush because it blossoms about the time the shad 
commence to run in the spring. 

23. The hawthorn belongs to what family? 

24. The box family is a very small one. The plants are 
all evergreen. The common box can be kept trimmed so 
low that it makes ornamental garden borders. Boxes were 
named from the fact that they were formerly made from 
boxwood. "When is Candlemas ? "When did the holly sway ? 
How long does Herrick give for the box to be used as a 
decoration ? After Easter day, the poem goes on : 

Then youthful box, which now hath grace 

Your houses to renew. 
Grown old, surrender must his place 

Unto the crisped yew. 

25. Alder, birchj and the hazel, all belong to the birch 
family. Do alders usually grow by the water. Compare 
with these quotations: 

From pool to eddy, dark and deep. 
Where alders moist, and willows weep. 

— Sir Walter Scott, Marmion 

Came wet-shod alder from the wave, 

— Alfred Tennyson, AmpMon 

Where dancing sunbeams on the waters played. 
And verdant alders formed a quiv-ring shade. 

— Alexander Pope, Spring 

By the flowing river the alder catkins swing. 

— Celia Thaxter, Wild Geese 



MAECH 127 

26. Aspen, poplar, and cottonwood belong to the willow 
family. What kind of a stem has an aspen or poplar leaf? 
(Flat.) The shape of the stem, and the way the leaf is 
set on it, are the cause of the tremnlonsness. Study the 
legend. 

27. The walnut family includes the hickory. Different 
kinds of walnuts ? What is the butternut ? 

28. The maple family is a small one, including but the 
maples, the box-elders, and an Asiatic kind of tree. Dif- 
ferent kinds of maple — red, sugar, silver, Norway, swamp, 
rock, or curly maple. 

29. The mimosa family includes the acacia and the sen- 
sitive plant. The leaves of many of them are very sensitive 
to heat, cold, wind, or the human touch. If desired, use : 

Weak with nice sense, the chaste mimosa stands, 
From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands; 
Oft as light clouds o'erpass the summer glade, 
Alarmed, she trembles at the moving shade; 
And feels alive through all her tender form 
The whispered murmurs of the gathering storm; 
Shuts her sweet eyelids to the approaching night, 
And hails with freshened charms the rising light. 

— Anon., The Mimosa 

30. The dogwood family consists of the different kinds 
of dogwood and the sour gums. Study the bunch-berry. 

31. The ceiba tree belongs to the silk-cotton tree family. 
It is called God tree and silk-cotton tree. Eead a descrip- 
tion of the first voyage and landing of Columbus. 



APRIL — A MONTH OF SONG BIRDS 



1. Mocking 


Bird 


9. 


17. 


25. 


2. American Kobin 10. 


18. 


26. 


3. European Eobin 


. 11. 


19. 


27. 


4. Skylark 




12. 


20. 


28. 


5. 




13. 


21. 


29. 


6. 




14. 


22. 


30. 


7. 




15. 


23. 




8. 




16. 


24. 





Mocking Bird: 

Here sports the Mocking-Bird with matchless strain, 
Returning back each warbler's notes again; 
Now chants a Robin, now o 'er all the throng 
Pours out in strains sublime the Thrush's song: 
Barks like a Squirrel, like the Cat-bird squalls, 
Now '* Whip-poor-will," and now ''Bob White" he 
calls. 

— Alexander Wilson, The Invitation 
American Robin: 

From the elm-tree's topmost bough, 

Hark! the robin's early song! 
Telling one and all that now 

Merry spring-time hastes along, 
Welcome tidings dost thou bring, 
Little harbinger of Spring! 
Robin's come! 
— William C. Caldwell, EoMn's Come 

European Robin: 

Art thou the bird whom Man loves best. 
The pious bird with the scarlet breast. 
Our little English Robin? 

128 



APEIL 129 

The bird that comes about our doors, 
When autumn winds are sobbing ? 
Art thou the Peter of Norway Boors? 

Their Thomas in Finland, 

And Russia far inland? 
The bird, that by some name or other 
All men who know thee call their brother, 
The darling of children and men? 
— William Wordsworth, The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly 

4. Skylark: 

How the blithe lark runs up the golden stair 

That leans thro' cloudy gates from Heaven to Earth, 
And all alone in the empyreal air 

Fills it with jubilant sweet songs of mirth; 
How far he seems, how far 

With the light upon his wings. 
Is it a bird, or star, 
That shines and sings? 

-^Frederick Tennyson, The STcylarTc 

5. Bluebird: 

Bluebird! on yon leafless tree, 

Dost thou carol thus to me, 
"Spring is coming! Spring is here!*' 

Say'st thou so, my birdie dear? 

What is that, in misty shroud. 

Stealing from the darken 'd cloud? 

Lo ! the snow-flakes' gathering mound 

Settles o'er the whiten 'd ground; 

Yet thou singest, blithe and clear, 
* ' Spring is coming ! Spring is here ! ' ' 

— Lydia Sigourney, The Early Bluelird 



130 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

6. Marsh Wren: 

From the reeds would spring, 

"Whirring, the meadow-wren, and start and stare 

And sputter, lighting from their bending tops 

As if indignant and no less amazed 

That I should thus, with causeless and ill-timed 

Approach, upon the privacy intrude 

And urgent duties of her precious life. 

— George Hill, Eamilings in Autumn 

7. Catbird: 

Delicate and downy throat, 

Shaped for pure, melodious note, — 

Silvery wings of softest gra}^, — « 

Bright eyes glancing every way, — 

Graceful outline, — motion free, — 

Types of perfect harmony! 

Unto whom two notes are given. 

One of earth and one of heaven ; 

Were it not a shameful tale 

If the earth-note should prevail? 

— Anonymous. The CatMrd 

8. Baltimore Oriole: 

At some glad moment was it nature's choice 

To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice ? 

Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black. 

In some forgotten garden, ages back. 

Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard. 

Desire unspeakably to be a bird? 

— Edgar Fawcett, To an Oriole 



APRIL 131 

9. Bobolink: 

When Nature had made all her birds, 

With no more cares to think on, 
She gave a rippling laugh, and out 
There flew a Bobolinkon. 

— C. P. Cranch, The Boholinhs 

10. Yellow Warbler : 

Yellowbird, where did you learn that song, 

Perched on the trellis where grape-vines clamber, 

In and out fluttering all day long. 
With your golden breast bedropping amber? 

— Celia Thaxter, The Yellow Warbler 

11. YELL0V7 Headed Blackbird : 

The yellow-headed blackbird, with light yellow crown, 
Hangs fluttering in the air, and chatters thick 
Till her breath fails, when, breaking off, she drops 
On the next tree, and on its highest limb 
Or some tall flag, and gently rocking, sits, 
Her strain repeating. 

— Carlos Wilcox, Spring in New England 

12. Song Thrush: 

' ' Summer is coming ! Summer is coming ! 
I know it, I know it, I know it. 
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again!" 
Yes, my wild little poet. 

— Alfred Tennyson, The Throstle 

13. Song Sparrow: 

For still ^ 
The February sunshine steeps your boughs 
And tints the buds and swells the leaves within ; 
While the song-sparrow, warbling from her perch, 
Tells you that spring is near. 

— William Cullen Bryant, Among the Trees 



132 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

14. Cardinal: 

A day and then a week passed by ; 

The redbird hanging from the sill 
Sang not ; and all were wondering why 

It was so still — 
When one bright morning, loud and clear, 
Its whistle smote my drowsy ear, 
Ten times repeated, till the sound 
Filled every echoing niche around; 
And all things earliest loved by me, — 
The bird, the brook, the flower, the tree, — 
Came back again, as thus I heard 
The cardinal bird. 
— William D. Gallagher, The Cardinal Bird 

15. Nonpareil:. 

Nor did lack 
Sweet music to the magic of the scene ; 
The little crimson-breasted Nonpareil 
Was there, his tiny feet scarce bending down 
The silken tendril that he lighted on ; 

— William H. Timrod, The MocTcing-Bird 

16. Field Sparrow : 

One syllable, clear and soft, 

As a raindrop's silvery patter, 
Or a tinkling fairy-bell, heard aloft 

In the midst of the merry chatter 
Of robin and linnet and wren and jay — 

One syllable, oft repeated! 
He has but a word to say, 

And of that he will not be cheated. 

— Celia Thaxter, The Field Sparrow 



APRIL 133 

17. English Sparrow: 

We hear the note of a stranger bird, 

That ne 'er in our land till now was heard, 

A winged settler has taken his place 

With Teutons and men of the Celtic race ; 

He has followed their path to our hemisphere ; 

The Old- World Sparrow at last is here. 

— William Cullen Bryant, The Old World Sparrow 

18. Wood Thrush: 

The wood-robin sings at my door, 
And her song is the sweetest I hear 

From all the sweet birds that incessantly pour 
Their notes through the noon of the year. 

— James C. Clarke, The Wood-Bohin 

19. Nightingale: 

I knew the sparrow could not sing, 

And heard the stranger long ; 
I could not think so plain a bird 

Could sing so fine a song. 
I found her nest of oaken leaves, 

And eggs of paler brown, 
Where none would ever look for nests 

Or pull the sedges down. 
I love the Poet of the Woods, 

And love to hear her sing, — 
That with the Cuckoo, brings the love 

And music of the Spring. 

— John Clare, To the Nightingale 

20. Blue jay: 

bluejay up in the maple tree. 
Shaking your throat with such bursts of glee, 
How did you happen to be so blue ? 



134 ' FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

Did you steal a bit of the lake for your crest 
And fasten blue violets into your vest % 
Tell me, I pray you, — tell me true ! 

— Susan H. Swett, The Blue Jay 

21. Raven: 

The raven once in snowy plumes was drest, 

White as the whitest dove 's unsullied breast, 

Fair as the guardian of the Capitol, 

Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl; 

His tongue, his prating tongue, hath chang'd him quite, 

To sooty blackness from the purest white ; 

— Joseph Addison, Tr. of Ovid's Story of Coronis 

22. White-breasted Nuthatch: 

Do you know the pretty nuthatch in his suit of ashen 
blue, 
With his dainty bib of white, and his hose of modest 
brown ? 
You may hear him sing sometimes, though his notes 

are harsh and few, 
But you'll know him when you see him by the black 
upon his crown. 

— Mrs. M. a. B. Kelly, The Nuthatch 



23. Barn Swallow: 

I thought of the old barn set about 

With its stacks of sweet, dry hay, 
Of the swallows flying in and out. 
Through the gables, steep and gray. 

— Alice Gary, The Light of Days Gone By 



APEIL 135 

24. Bank Swallow: 

I passed an inland-cliff precipitate: 

From tiny caves peeped many a soot-black poll ; 

In each a mother-martin elate, 

And of the news delivered her small soul. 

Fantastic chatter! hasty, glad, and gay, 
Whereof the meaning was not ill to tell ; 
*' Gossip, how wags the world with you today?'' 

' ' Gossip, the world wags well, the world wags well. ' ' 

— Jean Ingelow, Sand Martins 

25. Black-capped Titmouse : 

When piped a tiny voice hard by 
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, 
Chic-chic-a-deedee ! saucy note 
Out of a sound heart and merry throat, 
As if it said, ' ' Good day, good sir ! 
Fine afternoon, old passenger!" 

— Ealph Waldo Emerson, The Titmouse 

26. Sedge Warbler: 

Fixed in a white thorn bush, its summer guest, 
So low, e'en grass o'er-topped its tallest twig, 

A sedge-bird built its little beauty nest. 

Close by the meadow pool and wooden brig. 

— John Clare, The Sedge-Bird's Nest 

27. White-throated Warbler: 

The happy white-throat on the swaying bough, 
Rocked by the impulse of the gadding wind 

That ushers in the showers of April, now 
Carols right joyously; and now reclined, 

Crouching, she clings close to her moving seat 

To keep her hold. 

— John Clare, The Happy Bird 



136 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

28. White-eyed Vireo: 

Up there among the maple leaves 

One morning bright in May, 
A tiny bird I chanced to spy, 
And plainly heard him say : 

"Sweet, who-are-you ? " 
— Annie Wakely Johnson, To a White-Eyed Vireo 

29. House Wren: 

There, unappalled by unmolesting friends. 
The russet when glides in among the vines. 
And adds another strand unto its nest. 
Then on the neighboring trellis pours its song. 
The poor man's cottage is its favorite haunt; 
And he is poor, indeed, who to his roof 
Can welcome not the yearly visitor 
To cheer his door with music. 

— Thomas B. Read, The New Pastoral 

30. Golden Crested Kinglet: 

And many a merry bird is there, 

Unscared by lawless men ; 
The blue-winged jay, the woodpecker, 

The golden-crested wren. 

— Mary Howitt, Summer Woods 

Suggestions for Study 

(For this month thirty song-birds have been selected for study. To 
the scientist, a song-bird is one that has a certain type of voiee-box, 
whether it really sings or not. Thus the crow and the wax-wing are 
song birds, though they are never heard to sing out loud and musically. 
There are about thirty families of singing-birds.) 

1. The mocking-bird, the brown thrush, and the catbird 
are a family by themselves, which is called the mocking- 



APEIL 137 

bird family. If desired, use the quotation in Evangeline, 
Part II, beginning ''Then from a neighboring thicket." 

2. The American robin is a large thrush. Other mem- 
bers of the thrush family are the English nightingale, the 
wood-robin, the hermit thrush, the European blackbird, 
the song-thrush, the veery, the ring ouzel, the kinglets, the 
European redwing, the fieldfare, the missel thrush. The 
American robin is one of our most popular birds. 

3. The European robin belongs to the true warbler 
family. Other members are the blackcap, whitethroat, 
garden warbler, sedge warbler, hedge sparrow, bluethroat, 
chiffchaff, yellow wren, willow warbler, reed-warbler, 
European redstart, furzeling. Study "The Babes in the 
"Wood." 

4. The lark family is not represented in America except 
by the shore, or horned, larks. The skylark, the crested 
lark, the wood lark, and the calendar lark are all European, 
though a few skylarks have been imported to this country. 
If preferred, use some other skylark poem. 

5. The American bluebird is a member of the wheatear 
family. The stonechat and the whinchat are also members 
of this family. 

6. The wren family consists of several different kinds 
— house wren, winter wren, marsh wren, California wren. 
All are small birds, and a distinguishing feature of their 
build is the angle at which the tail is held. 

7. The catbird is a mocker. Why called catbird? If 
preferred, use Miss Thomas's "The Catbird." 

8. The American orioles do not belong to the same 
family as the European orioles. To the American oriole 
family belong such birds as the bobolink, the crow black- 
birds, the red-winged blackbirds, the yellow-headed black- 



138 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

birds, the meadow lark, and the different kinds of orioles 
— Baltimore, orchard, hooded. It is said that the bird is 
named after Lord Baltimore, because his colors were black 
and orange. 

9. The bobolink belongs to the American oriole family. 
Read a good description of the bird. When called reed- 
bird ? When called rice-bird ? Different suits of feathers ? 
Eead Bryant's poem, ''Robert of Lincoln." 

10. The yellow warbler is one of the American wood 
warblers, of which there are over one hundred different 
kinds. Most of them are named from their colorings, as the 
golden-winged warbler, the Maryland yellowthroat, the 
black-and-white warbler, the black-and-green warbler, red- 
start, and yellow-breasted chat. Does this description of 
Miss Thaxter's suit the bird? 

11. The 3^ellow-headed blackbird belongs to the American 
oriole family. This is the only quotation I have found on 
the bird. 

12. The song-thrush is a European bird. It is also called 
throstle and mavis. The stanza is supposed to imitate the 
bird's song. 

13. The song-sparrow belongs to the finch family. Other 
members of this large family are the house-sparrow, field 
sparrow, cardinal, purple finch, canary, snow bunting, 
junco, yellow hammer, crossbill, nonpareil, linnet, chaffinch, 
Lapland longspur, white-crowned sparrow, golden-crowned 
sparrow, bullfinch, lark bunting, hawfinch, red poll, indigo- 
bird, goldfinch, white-throated sparrow. 

14. The cardinal bird is a member of the finch family. 
Different kinds of cardinals ? 

15. The nonpareil is a finch. Read a description of the 
bird. 



APEIL 139 

16. The field sparrow is a finch. 

17. The English sparrow is also called house sparrow. 
It was brought to this country as an insect exterminator, 
but has become a pest itself. So Bryant's welcome to the 
bird w^as untimely. As another poet says: 

How little, how little we knew, 
The pest he would prove to the town. 

18. The woodthrush is also called wood-robin. It is an 
American kind of thrush. 

19. The nightingale is a member of the thrush family. 
Different kinds of nightingales ? If desired, use some other 
of the many quotations on this bird. 

20. The blue jay is a member of the crow family. The 
raven, magpie, rook, jackdaw, and chough also belong to 
the family. Different kinds of jays — Canada, European, 
crested blue jay, crestless blue jay. 

21. Ravens belong to the crow family. 

22. The nuthatch family is a small one, but few kinds 
— white-breasted and red-breasted being American birds. 

23. The swallow family contains the barn swallow, the 
bank-swallow, the eaves, cliff, and chimney swallows, Eu- 
ropean house martin, and the purple martin. The true 
chimney swallow is a European bird, the American ' ' chim- 
ney swallow" belonging to the swift family. 

24. The bank-swallow is also called, in England, sand 
martin. 

25. The titmouse family is a small one. Different mem- 
bers are the black-capped titmouse, or chickadee, the blue 
titmouse, the great titmouse, the marsh, crested, and long: 
tailed. Read the w^hole of Emerson's poem, if possible. 

26. The sedge warbler is a European bird, also called 
sedge-wren. 



140 FKIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

27. The white-throated warbler is a relative of the Euro- 
pean robin. 

28. The vireo family is an American one. Its members 
are the warbling vireo, the red-eyed, the w^hite-eyed, the 
black-whiskered, or Whip-Tom-Kelly. The vireos are also 
called greenlets. Yireo is Latin for green, flourishing. 

29. The house wren is an American wren, often called 
Jenny Wren. Her European relative is shyer than she, 
preferring hedges to houses for nesting purposes. 

30. The golden-crested kinglet is a small thrush. The 
fire-crest is a near relative, found in Europe. The golden- 
crested kinglet is found in both America and Europe, the 
two birds being slightly different. 



MAY — A MONTH OF BLOSSOMS 



1. May-apple 


9. 


17. 


25. 


2. Dandelion 


10. 


18. 


26. 


3. Snowdrop 


11. 


19. 


27. 


4. Violet 


12. 


20. 


28. 


5. 


13. 


21. 


29. 


6. 


14. 


22. 


30. 


7. 


15. 


23. 


• 31. 


8. 


16. 


24. 





1. May- Apple: 

And farther, where the light was dim, 

I saw the bloom 
Of May-apples, beneath the tent 
Of umbel leaves above them bent; 

— William D. Gallagher,, The Cardinal Bird 

2. Dandelion: 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way. 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold. 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold. 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
"When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! 

Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart. 

— James E. Lowell, To the Dandelion 

3. Snowdrop: 

To behold the snowdrop white 

Start to light. 

And shine in Flora's desert bowers. 

Beneath the vernal dawn. 

The Morning Star of Flowers. 

— James Montgomery, The Snowdrop 

141 



142 FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

4. Violet: 

^Welcome, maids of honor, 
You do bring 
In the spring 
, And wait upon her. 

— Robert Heerick, To Violets 

5. Daffodil: 

Though many a flower in the wood is waking, 
The daffodil is our door-yard queen ; 

She pushes upward the sward already, ^ 

To spot with sunshine the early green. 

— William C. Bryant, An Invitation to the Country 

6. WOODVETCH: 

And where profuse the wood-vetch clings 
Round ash and elm in verdant rings. 
Its pale and azure-pencilled flower 
Should canopy Titania's bower. 

— Sir Walter Scott, EoTcely 

7. Sweet Pea: 

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight : 
"With wings of gentle flush o 'er delicate white. 
And taper fingers catching at all things 
To bind them all about with tiny rings. 

— John Keats, I Stood Tiptoe on a Little Eill 

8. White Clover: 

The light streaked down in golden mist. 
Kindled the shrubs, the greensward kissed, 
Until the clover-blossoms white 
Flashed out like spangles large and bright. 

— Alfred B. Street, Quebec 



MAY 143 

9. Buckwheat: 

And the coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom, 
Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive 
With the wide murmur of the scattered hive ; 

— Oliver W. Holmes, Botanic Gardens 

10. Sorrel : 

In rustic solitude 'tis sweet 

The earliest flowers of Spring to greet, — 

The violet from its tomb, 
The strawberry, creeping at our feet, 

The sorrel's simple bloom. 

— James Montgomery, A Walk in Spring 

11. Harebell: 

O fair and frail, the bluebell of old song. 
The harebell, nodding by the sedge's foot. 

Or looking forth, with gentle courage strong. 
In shelter of some olden ash-tree root. 

— Alexander H. Japp, The Harehell 

12. Waterlily: 

Or turn the prow to some lone bay, 
Where thick the floating leaves are spread; 

How bright and queen-like the array 
Of lilies in their crystal bed. 

— Henry T. Tuckerman, LaTce Canepo 

13. Bishop's Cap: 

Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings 

The Spring, clothed like a bride. 
When nestling buds unfold their wings, 
And bishop 's-caps have golden rings, 
Musing upon many things, 
I sought the woodlands wide. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, 
Voices of the Night — Prelude 



144 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

14. Sundew: 

'* What's this I hear 
About the new carnivora? 
Can little plants 
Eat bugs and ants 
And gnats and flies? 
A sort of retrograding: 
Surely the fare 
Of flowers is air, 
Or sunshine sweet ; 
They shouldn't eat 
Or do aught so degrading!" 

— Anon., The Sun-Dew 

15. Common Plantain: 

Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them 
Springs a flower unknown among us, 
Springs the White-man's Foot in blossom. 

— Henry W. Longfellow, Eiawaiha 

16. Pyrola: 

With round leaf, green and glossy, with pure, rich, 

creamy bloom, 
The Pyrola in beauty distills its rare perfume. 

— Phoebe A. Holder, A Woodland Hymn 

17. Spring Beauty : 

They pencil lightly with tender pink 

The pale spring-beauty, that hides her flowers 

In chilly hollows, where snowdrifts shrink 
Under April's persistent showers. 

— Mrs. Elizabeth Akers Allen, The Miracle WorJcers 



MAY 145 

18. Cowslip: 

The timorous cowslips, one by one, 
Trembling chilly, a tip-toe stand, 

On little hillocks and knolls alone, 
Peer all over the nestling land. 

— George MacDonald, The Turn of the Year 

19. Wood Anemone : 

Lodged in sunny clefts. 
Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone 
The little wind-flower, whose just-opened eye 
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at — 
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves 
With unexpected beauty, for the time 
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar. 

— William C. Bryant, A Winter Piece 

20. Fire Pink: 

Bending low, and rising higher, 
Scarlet pinks their lamps of fire. 

Lightly swing about; 
And the wind that blows them over 
Out of sight among the clover, 

Seems to blow them out! 

— Phoebe Gary, Gathering BlacJcberries 

21. Corn Poppy: 

To ramble from field to field, 

Where the poppy is all on flame — 

All but the little black coal 

At its core, that's still the same. 

— Anon., Summer Idleness 



146 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

22. Sea Poppy: 

A poppy grows npon the shore, 

Bursts her twin cup in summer late ; 

Her leaves are glaucous green and hoar, 
Her petals yellow, delicate. 

— Egbert Bridges, The Sea Poppy 

23. Celandine: 

Thou canst not live to see the spring unfold, 

Nor view the glory of a vernal day ; 
Thou canst not linger, blooming, to behold 

The crowning wealth of May. 
Yet thine is but the lot of such as lead 

Onward to glorious periods, alone. 
Of such as in the battle fight and bleed. 

And die at victory's dawn. 

— Sam Wood, To the First Celandine 

24. Wood Sorrel: 

The gold-cup sorrel from his gauzy screen 
Shone like a fairy crown, enchased and beaded, 
Left on some morn, when light flash 'd in their eyes 
unheeded. 

— Joseph Eodman Drake, Bronx 

25. Moccasin Flov^er: 

Graceful and tall, the slender, drooping stem, 

With two broad leaves below. 
Shapely the flower so lightly poised between, 

And warm her rosy glow. 

— Elaine Goodale, The Moccasin-Flower 

26. Hollyhock: 

And rows of stately hollyhocks, 

Down by the garden wall. 
All yellow, white, and crimson, 

So many-hued and tall. 

— Mary Howitt, The Child and the Flowers 



MAY 147 

27. English Daisy : 

The daisy awakes 
And opens her wondering eyes, yet red 
About the rims with a too long sleep ; 
Whilst, bold from his ambush, with helm on head 
And lance in rest, doth the bulrush leap. 

— Edward Egbert Bulwer-Lytton, 
'Tis the White Anemone 

28. Lily of the Valley : 

leaves of that shy plant, 
(Her flowers were shed) the lily of the vale, 
That loves the ground, and from the sun withholds 
Her pensive beauty, from the breeze her sweets. 

— William Wordsworth, The Excursion 

29. Tulip: 

Who wants a gown 

Of purple fold, 
Embroidered down 
The seams with gold? 

See here! — a Tulip richly laced, 
To please a royal fairy 's taste ! 

— George Barley, Nephron 's Song 

30. Iris: 

I weave the silken fringe, that, as a vest, 
Mantles the fleur-de-lis in glossy down, 

I scatter gold spots on its open breast. 

And lift in slender points of blue its crown; 

— James C. Percival, The Queen of Flowers 

31. Foxglove: 

The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather, 

Preparing her hoods of snov/; 
She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather : 

Oh, children take long to grow. 

— Jean Ingelow, Songs of Seven 



148 FRIDAY AFTEENOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

Suggestions for Study 

(All the plants named here are herbs. What is an herb? How 
different from a tree or shrub? The rose and the strawberry both 
belong to the rose family; the rose is a shrub and the strawberry is 
an herb. What is the difference?) 

1. The May-apple belongs to tlie barberry family. What 
is meant by umbel leaves? Children often call the plant 
''umbrellas." Why? What is the fruit? 

2. The dandelion belongs to the chicory family. What 
is the fall-dandelion ? Where was the dandelion originally 
found? 

3. The snowdrop belongs to the amaryllis family. Other 
members are the golden spider lily, atamasco lily, century 
plant, narcissus, daifodil, polyanthus, jonquil, tuberose, 
guernsey lily, queen lily, star-grass. The snowdrop is 
known in^ England as the * ' Fair Maid of February. ' ' Flora 
is the goddess of flowers in ancient myths. What is meant 
by the "Morning Star of flowers"? 

4. The violet family is a large one. Different kinds of 
violets are the yellow, white, sweet, and pansy. What are 
maids of honor? 

5. If preferred, for the daffodil use Wordsworth's poem. 

6. The vetches belong to the bean family. Different 
kinds of vetches are wood vetch, hairy vetch, meadow vetch, 
tare vetch. Who was Titania? 

7. The sweet pea belongs to the bean family. Other 
members of the family — furze, rose acacia, laburnum, 
scarlet runner, etc. 

8. Clovers belong to the bean family. Different kinds 
of clovers — white, red, purple, crimson, rabbit-foot, Jap- 
anese, alsike. 



MAY 149 

9. Buckwheat belongs to the same family as the bear- 
bind, the sorrel, the dock, rhubarb, sea grape. The name 
really means heech-tvheat, from the shape of the seeds, 
which resemble beech-nuts. 

10. The sorrel belongs to what family? Read a good 
description of the plant. Different kinds of sorrel — sheep, 
common, etc. 

11. The harebell belongs to the bellflower family, with 
the Canterbury bell, the grand throatwort, and the venus's 
looking-glass. Bluebell is another name for the harebell 

12. The waterlily family includes both white, yellow, 
blue, and pink flowered plants. Read a description of the 
Victoria regia. How do the flowers reach the surface of 
the water '? Where do the seeds ripen ? 

13. Bishop 's-cap is another name for the miterwort. It 
belongs to the saxifrage family. 

14. Sundew forms a family by itself. Read a description 
of the plant. What is a carnivora? 

15. The plantain, the shoreweed, and rib-grass belong 
to the plantain family. Why would the plantain be called 
the ''whiteman's foot"? 

16. The pyrola family is a small one, containing also 
the pipsissewa and the one-flowered wintergreen. Pyrola 
is often called sliinleaf. 

17. The spring beauty belongs to the portulacca family. 
If desired, give the quotation from "Hiawatha," in the 
canto, ''The Whiteman's Foot," which gives the history 
of the Miskodded, the Indian name for this flower. 

18. The true cowslip belongs to the primrose family — 
so do the oxlip, the auricula, the cyclamen, the pimpernel, 
willow-weed, star-flower. The American cowslip is a mem- 
ber of the primrose family, and is usually called shooting- 



150 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

star. The marsh marigold, a crowfoot, is erroneously called 
cowslip. 

19. The anemone, or windflower, is a member of the 
crowfoot family. So are the buttercup, lesser celandine, 
marsh marigold, clematis, gold-thread, globeflower, lark- 
spur, meadow rue, aconite, baneberry, columbine, hepatica, 
peony, pasque-flower, love-in-a-mist, hellebore, adonis, rue 
anemone. 

20. The pink family contains the catchflys, campions, 
chickweed, stitchwort, sweet William, carnation, sandwort, 
corn cockle, bouncing bet, and ragged robin. 

21. The poppy family contains the opium poppy, corn, 
sea, windrose, bleeding heart, dutchman's breeches, fumi- 
tory, California poppy, bloodroot, celandine or swallow- 
wort, corydalis, celandine poppy. 

22. To what family does the sea-poppy belong? 

23. To what family does the celandine belong? 

24. The wood sorrel is a member of the oxalis family. 

25. The moccasin flower is an orchid. Other members 
of the orchid family are the spotted orchid, purple orchid, 
arethusa, putty-root, lady's traces, vanilla, butterfly, fly, 
spider, frog, bee orchid, cattleya. Other name for moccasin 
flower is lady-slipper. 

26. The hollyhock is a member of the mallow family. 
Rosemallow, cotton, marsh-mallow, okra also belong to the 
family. 

27. The English daisy belongs to the aster family, w^hich 
contains the sunflower, goldenrod, edelweiss, camomile, 
tansy, yarrow, ox-eye daisy, yellow daisy, wormwood, sage- 
brush, dahlia, ironweed, chrysanthemum, marigold. The 
English daisy has red-tipped ray flowers. 

28. The lily of the valley family includes the wake- 



I 



MAY 151 

robin, the Solomon's seal, and asparagus. 

29. Tulips belong to the lily family, with the onion, hya- 
cinth, star-of-Bethlehem, cro\vn-imperial. 

30. The iris family includes the spring crocus, the saffron 
crocus, and the fleur-de-lis. 

31. The foxglove belongs to the figwort family, which 
includes the eyebright, mullein, snapdragon, toadflax, 
painted cup, speedwell, Gerardia, turtle-head, beardtongue. 
Use of figwort in medicine, as digitalis? 



JUNE — A MONTH OF GRASSES 



1. Wheat 


9. 


17. 


25. 


2. Timothy 


10. 


18. 


26. 


3. Corn 


11. 


19. 


27, 


4. Blue-Bent 


12. 


20. 


28. 


5. 


13. 


21. 


29, 


6. 


14. 


22. 


30. 


7. 


15. 


23. 




8. 


16. 


24. 





1. Wheat: 

"Who, mid the grasses of the field, 

That spring beneath our careless feet, 
First found the shining stems that yield 

The grains of life-sustaining wheat, 
Who first upon the furrowed land 

Strewed the bright grains to sprout, and grow. 
And ripen for the reaper's hand — 

We know not, and we cannot know. 

— William Cullen Bryant, Dance 

2. Timothy: 

Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and 

timothy, 
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and 

swine. 

— Walt Whitman, A Carol of Harvest 

3. Indian Corn: 

Till at length a small green feather 
From the earth shot slowly upward. 
Then another and another. 
And, before the Summer ended. 
Stood the maize in all its beauty, 
152 



JUNE 153 

With its shining robes about it, 
And its long, soft, yellow tresses, 
And in rapture Hiawatha 
Cried aloud, "It is Mondamin! 
Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!'* 

— Henry W. Longfellow, Hiawatha 

4. Blue Bent: 

Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed, 

He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue, 

He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed, 

And away like a glance of thought he flew. 

To skim the heavens, and follow far 

The fiery trail of the rocket-star. 

— Joseph Eodman Drake, The Culprit Fay 

5. EiCE: 

And thou dost scatter benefits around thee : 

Thy silver current yields 

Life to the green rice-fields. 
That have like an enchanted girdle bound thee. 

— Letitia E. Landon,. The Ganges 

6. Wild Rice : 

But when our northern summer's o'er, 
By Delaware's or Schuylkill's shore, 
The wild-rice lifts its airy head, 
And royal feasts for thee are spread. 

— Thomas Hill, The BoholijiJc 

7. Tefp: 

I see the highlands of Abyssinia, 

I see the flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, 

tamarind, date, 
And see fields of teff-wheat, and see the places of 

verdure and gold. 

— Walt Whitman, Salut au Monde 



154 FEIDAY AFTEBNOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

8. Marsh Grass: 

A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, 

broad in the blade, 
Green, and all of a height, and unfleeked with a light 

or a shade, 
Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain. 
To the terminal blue of the main. 

— Sidney Lanier, The Marshes of Glynn 

9. Sugar-Cane: 

But chief glory of these Indian isles 

Springs from the sweet, uncloying sugar-cane : 

Hence comes the planter's wealth, hence commerce 

sends 
Such floating piles, to traverse half the main. 

— Phiwp Freneau, Santor Cms 

10. Darnel: 

If field with corn ye fail to preoccupy 
Darnel for wheat and thistle-beards for grain 
Will grow apace in combination prompt. 
Defraud the husbandman of his desire. 

— Egbert Browning, The Bing and the BooTc 

11. Blue Joint: 

Did you ever lie low 
In the depth of the plain. 
In the lea of a swell that lifts 
Like a low-lying island out of the sea, 
"When the blue joint shakes 

As an army of spears, 
When each flashing wave breaks 
In turn overhead, 

And wails in the doors of your ears? 

— Hamlin Garland, In the Autumn Grass 



JUNE 155 

12. Lemon Grass: 

among the palms 
The tinkle of the rippling water rang, 
And where it ran the glad earth 'broidered it 
With balsams and the spears of lemon-grass. 

— Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia 

13. Lady^ Grass: 

I could paint the garden, with its paths 
Cut smooth, and running straight, — 

The gray sage bed, the poppies red. 
And the lady-grass at the gate. 

— Alice Gary, If and If 

14. Pampas Grass: 

To left, to right, below the height. 
Below the wood, by wave and stream. 
Plumed pampas grasses grew to gleam 
And bend their lordly plumes, and run 
And shake as if in very fright, 
Before the sharp lances of the sun. 

— Joaquin Miller, The Sea of Fire 

15. Barley: 

And white-bearded, bending barley-ears 
Nod in the soft south breeze. 

— AsTLEY H. Baldwin, Fruit Time 

16. Eed Top: 

Red-top and Timothy 

Come here in the spring; 
Light spears out of emerald sheaths 

Everywhere they swing; 
Harmless little soldiers. 

On the fields they play, 
'Nodding plumes and crossing blades 

All the livelong day. 

— Lucy Larcom, Bed-Top and Timothy 



156 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

17. Quaking Grass: 

A trimmlin jock i' t 'house, 
An' you weeant hev a mouse. 

— Yorlcshire Proverb 

18. Porcupine Grass: 

Throughout that night, 
Cool dews came sallying on that rain-starved land, 
And drenched the thick rough tufts of bristly grass. 
Which, stemmed like quills (and thence termed porcu 

pine). 
Thrust hardily thin shoots amid the flints 
And sharp-edged stones. 

— Philip J. Holdsworth, Station-Hunting on the Warrago 

19. Reed: 

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 
From the deep, cool bed of the river. 

And hacked and hewed as a great god can 
With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed, 
Till there was not a sign of a leaf, indeed. 

To prove it fresh from the river. 
He cut it short, did the great god Pan 

(How tall it stood in the river!) 
— Elizabeth Baerett Browning, A Musical Instrument 

20. Wild Oats: 

My western land, I love thee yet! 
In dreams I ride my horse again 
And breast the breezes blowing fleet 
From out the meadows cool and Avet, 
From fields of flowers blowing sweet. 



JUNE 157 

And flinging perfume to the breeze, 

The wild oats swirl along the plain; 
I feel their dash against my knees, 
Like rapid plash of running seas. 

— Hamlin Garland, Prairie Memories 

21. Bamboo: 

Where the light bamboo waves her feathery screen, 

— Lord Morpeth, Havana 

22. Millet: 

And when the millet's ripe heads fall, 
And all the bean-field hangs in pod, 

My mother smiles and says that all 
Are gifts from God. 

— John G. Whittier, The Hermit of the Thehiad 

23. Eye: 

The summer grains were harvested; the stubble-fields 

lay dry, 
Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale 

green waves of rye, 

— John G. Whittier, The Huskers 

24. Melic : 

' ' Cusha ! Cusha ! Cusha ! ' ' calling 

Ere the early dews were falling, 

Farre away I heard her song. 

*' Cusha! Cusha!" all along; 

Where the reedy Lindis floweth, 

Floweth, floweth, 
From the meads where melick groweth 
Faintly came her milking-song. 
— Jean Ingelow, 
The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire (1571) 



158 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS , 

25. Witch-Grass : 

The witch-grass round the hazel spring 
May sharply to the night-air sing, 
But there no more shall withered hags 
Refresh at ease their broomstick nags, 

— John G. Whittier, 
Extract from "A New England Legend** 

26. Salt Grass: 

Northward a green bluff broke the chain 
Of sand-hills; southward stretched a plain 
Of salt-grass, with a river winding down, 
Sail-whitened 

— John G. Whittier, The Tent on the Beach 

27. MrrcHELL Grass: 

We saw the fleet wild horses pass, 

And the kangaroos through the Mitchell grass, 

— Anon., Australia 

28. Broom Grass: 

Weird voices in the cedars moan, 

And prophesy of winter near. 
And a sad, quivering semitone 

Runs through the reeds and broomsedge sere; 

— Anon., The Close of Autumn 

29. Sweet Grass: 

Though now the sweet-grass scents the air, 
And sunny nature basks in joy. 
It is not ever so. 

— W. J. Snelling, The Birth of Thunder 

30. Moor Grass: 

The twisted hemlock, the slanted rye-grass, 
The juicy moor-grass, can all be found; 

— Duncan Macintyre, Coire Cheathaich 



JUNE 159 

Suggestions for Study 

(See Webster's New International for definition of grass, number 2 
being used in this instance. There are 3,500 different kinds of grasses, 
all belonging to the family Poaceae, or Grass family. The sedges 
and the rushes are each made into a family by themselves. The Grass 
family is one of the most useful ones known to botany, since it 
furnishes man many useful food grains and grazing animals with 
food.) 

1. Wheat has been so long cultivated that Bryant's 
poem is wholly correct. Its origin is not known, and the 
plant does not occur in a wild state. It was known to the 
pyramid-builders, and grains are commonly found' in 
ancient ruins. There are many varieties of common wheat 
— Durum, Northern, and different winter wheats, — while 
the Polish and the one-grained are considered different 
species from the common wheat. It was not knoT\Ti to 
America before the advent of white settlers. It is the 
emblem of riches. The following folk-rhyme implies that 
a full moon at Christmas is unlucky for the farmer: 

Light Christmas, light wheat sheaf. 
Dark Christmas, heavy wheatsheaf. 

2. Timothy is a European grass; first brought over to 
New England. When Timothy Hanson carried the seed 
from New England to Maryland, about 1720, it became 
known as "timothy." It is also called herd 's-grass : 

and from the mows 
Eaked down the herd 's-grass for the cows; 

— John G. Whittier, Snowhound 

3. Corn originally meant a kernel, or grain; in Eng- 
land it is still applied to w^heat, rye, barley, and oats. Indian 
corn is a native American grass, called by the aborigines 
mays, but has been cultivated since the discovery of 



160 FKIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

America, both here and in Europe. Sidney Lanier, Whit- 
tier, Celia Thaxter, and others, have written poems on 
the corn, which may be used if desired. Study the story 
of Mondamin, as given in Bayard Taylor's poem by that 
name, and in ''Hiawatha's Fasting." Study also "Bless- 
ing the Cornfields," in Hiawatha, and the reference to the 
maize in Part IV of Evangeline. Different varieties of 
corn — popcorn, field corn, sweet corn, and even different 
kinds of each variety. 

4. There are several kinds of stiff, wiry grasses known 
as hent. In the poem, the blue-bent is doubtless meant. 
This is a description of the culprit fay as he starts off to 
fulfill the elf -king's commands. Robert Herrick refers to 
the bent in his poem, "Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve." 

5. The word rice can be traced from the French, through 
the Latin, Greek, and Persian to the Sanskrit, proof of its 
antiquity as a food. Like wheat, it has been cultivated 
so long that history does not tell us anything about a time 
when it was not raised by man. It ranks second to wheat 
as a cereal. There are said to be nearly two hundred 
varieties. Read a description of its cultivation. Where 
grown mostly? 

6. The grass known in this country as wild rice is not 
a form of the cultivated rice. It is used by the Indians as 
food. 

I hear the wild-rice eater thresh 
The grain he has not sown. 

— John G. Whittier, 
On Beceiving an Eagle 's Quill from LaTce Superior 

Through the Muskoday, the meadow, 
Saw the wild rice, the Mahnomonee. 

— Hiawatha 



JUNE 161 

"What Michigan city is probably named from the plant ? 

7. Teff is an Abyssinian grain plant, the seeds of which 
yield a white flour of good quality. This is the only refer- 
ence I found to the grass. 

8. The marsh-grass is a coarse grass abundant in the 
eastern United States. Study the quotation. 

9. Sugar-cane was cultivated by the Chinese and in 
India in the earliest times known to history. It is not 
now found in a wild state. It is now grown in all warm 
countries — southern states, "West Indies, South America, 
Australia. How is the sugar obtained ? From what other 
plants is sugar derived? 

the jointed sugar-canes 
Pale-golden with their feathers motionless 
In the warm quiet. 

— George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy 

10. Darnel is frequently called bearded darnel on account 
of its awned flower-spikes. Its seeds are considered poison- 
ous. As the quotation implies, it is a grainfield pest, and 
if a piece of ground is left idle, soon takes complete 
possession. 

11. The blue- joint is an American grass, named from 
the color and construction of its long stems. If desired use : 

O'er a low-hung ridge where the blue- joint tips 
Reach up till they beat at the passer's hips. 

— Charles E. Banks, The Spirit of Silence 

12. Lemon grass is named from its odor. It is an East 
Indian plant, and citronella oil is made from it. 

13. Lady grass is an American name for the reed canary 
grass, found in all temperate regions. A form of this grass 
is the ornamental ribbon grass. 

14. Pampas grass is South American. It grows in tus- 



152 FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 

socks, with short leaves that grow thick about the tall 
flowering plumes. It is cultivated as a garden ornamental, 
and is often used in decorations. The quotation describes 
a prairie fire. 

15. Barley is said, by Pliny, to be the earliest grain 
cultivated for the food of man. It is not known where 
it originated, but the plant grows wild in Asia and Sicily. 
The old measure of length, called the barley-corn, was equal 
to the average length of a grain of barley, or one-third of 
an inch. John Barleycorn is a humorous personification 
of barley as the source of malt liquor. 

16. Red-top is valued in the United States for pasturage, 
and especially for lawn mixtures. In England it is usually 
little valued, and is known as florin. 

17. Quaking grass has slender-stalked, large, drooping 
spikes, which quake and rattle in the wind. In some parts 
of England it is called ''Trembling Jack" or ''trimmlin 
jock." Why the plant is obnoxious to mice is not stated. 
As shaking is one of the chief characteristics of ague, it 
was once believed that the quaking grass, when dried and 
kept in the house, would keep the dread disease away. 

18. The Australian porcupine grass is well described in 
the quotation. The plants often grow in thick tussocks, 
from seven to ten feet high, and the leaves are so stiff and 
sharp as to be successful spines. 

19. The reed is one of the most widely-known grasses 
among the poets. Where does it usually grow? Tell the 
Greek legend of Pan and Syrinx. What is a panpipe? 
Read all of Mrs. Browning's poem. The Indian counter- 
part of Pan was the gentle Chibiabos : 

From the hollow reeds he fashioned 
Flutes so musical and mellow, 



JUNE 163 

That the brook, the Sebowisha, 
Ceased to murmur in the woodland, 
That the wood-birds ceased from singing. 

— (Hiawatha's Friends) 

The music of the reeds is a favorite topic with the poets. 
See Longfellow's "Masque of Pandora," the stanza entitled 
*^ Chorus of Reeds.' ^ 

20. The cultivated oats were kno^vn before the Christian 
era. There are many wild species. What is meant by the 
phrase ''sowing wild oats"? Use of oats? 

21. Bamboo is a woody, tree-like grass, widely distrib- 
uted in warm countries. The plant may be cajled the 
national plant of China, and the uses to which they put it 
are numberless — the young and tender shoots are boiled 
and eaten as a vegetable, preserved as sweetmeats ; houses, 
boats, furniture, fishing-rods, canes, flutes are made from 
the stems, wick from the pith. If desired, use : 

What time the bamboo easts a deeper shade j 
When birds fill up the afternoon with song, 
When catkins vanish, and when pearblooms fade. 
Then noon is weary and the day is long. 

— Chu Shu-Chen, Summer 

22. Millet is cultivated extensively in Europe and Asia 
for food. Other grasses having similar uses are the pearl 
millet, Italian millet, the Australian millet-grass. 

23. Rye is another one of the ancient cereals. It is cul- 
tivated in Europe, where it is the chief ingredient in the 
so-called *' black-bread. " If desired, use: 

You must remember the long rippling ridge 
Of rye, that cut the level land in two. 
And changed from blue to green, from green to blue 

Summer after summer? 

— Alice Caey, Damaris 



164 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

24. Melic is widely distributed iif temperate regions, but 
has little agricultural value. Tell the story of the poem. 

25. "Witch grass is a common weed in cultivated gardens. 
Whittier has here made a play on the word, giving both 
it and the hazel connection with witches and hags. 

26. Salt grass grows much like marsh-grass, but the latter 
is more rush-like in appearance. They have no particular 
value. 

27. Mitchell grass is Australian. 

28. Broom grass is also known as broom-sedge, though 
it does not belong to the sedge family. This is not of any 
particular value. Contrary to the name, brooms are not 
made from broom-grass, but from another grass called 
broom-corn. 

29. The North American sweet grass is also called vanilla- 
grass, and is used for lawns, in making paper, and par- 
ticularly by the Indians in basketry. 

30. Moor-grass is also called heather-grass and heath- 
grass. It is European, and its names indicate its habitat. 
The hemlock mentioned in the quotation is a member of 
the celery family, the rye-grass is a near-relative of the 
darnel. 



A PATRIOTIC MEDLEY 

FOR ANY NUMBER OF CHILDREN 

This medley is a simple arrangement of patriotic airs given by a 
class of children equipped to represent a band. The horns are large 
cones of wrapping paper, and each drum is a cylindrical shaped hat- 
box with small slits in opposite sides through which is run the strap 
which passes about the drummer's shoulders. The drum may be 
decorated with bands of colored paper, and the drumsticks are wooden 
knitting-needles or short lengths of broomsticks. Other children carry 
a small block of wood in each hand, which they beat together for 
bones. The triangles can be easily obtained at a blacksmith's, or 
horseshoes will do with ten-penny nails for tappers. Other children 
carry a tiny patty-pan in each hand which they tap together with a 
musical tinkle, as chimes. Each tambourine girl carries a pie-pan on 
which she taps the rhythm. 

Each member of the band may wear, as a uniform, a pointed hat of 
wrapping paper ornamented at the top with a tiny flag or tricolor 
pompon. To make one of these colonial hats, fold a square of paper 
twenty-four inches to form a square 12 in. by 12 in. Turn three of 
the free corners up diagonally to the folded corner, then fold the 
remaining corner in opposite direction to folded corner. Add the 
decoration and wear the hats with the points over the ears. 

The children sing the airs to the syllable ''La," beating time 
meanwhile; but whenever the cornetists play they sing the word 
' ' toot ' ' through the horns, and when not playing they sing with the 
others. There should be more of the horns than of other instruments. 
One child acts as band-master and carries a baton with which he beats 
the time. Children sing and play as indicated in the following: 

I. Battee-Hymn of the Republic : 

Enter from the hall, in single line, the bandmaster 
leading. The full band plays ''Battle Hymn of the Re- 
public, ' ' and repeats it as often as desired, while circling 
about the room. At last they fall into double or triple 

165 



166 FRIDAY AFTERNOON ENTERTAINMENTS 

line along the front of the room, the horns in front iine 
and the leader facing the band. 

II. Yankee Doodle : 

Just the horns 'Hoof out the verse-part of this air, 
the full band gives the chorus. Repeat as desired. 

III. Dixie: 

While children sing this air to the syllable * ' La, ' ' the 
triangles beat the time for the first part. The full band 
then plays the chorus. Repeat as desired. 

IV. Red, White, and Blue : 

Horns and drums give the first part, then all beat time 
to the last part while singing words, *' Three cheers for 
the red, white, and blue." Repeat as desired. 

V. America: 

Tambourines and triangles give the first half; full band 
for last half. 

VI. Tenting To-night : 

Horns beat softly to first part of the air; full band 
softly for refrain. Repeat as desired. 
Exit, singing as in I. 



Pilgrim Maids. 



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1 Once there was 
U-4-S S- 


a Pil - grim maid, a Pil- grim maid, a 




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Pil-grim maid. Once there was a Pil - grim maid, And 



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this is what she did: 



Just so, just so, 



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just so, just so, This is what she did. 



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167 



PILGRIM MAIDS 

For this action-song choose seven little girls. Each one is to bring 
from home three large handkerchiefs, or squares of white muslin. To 
dress a child in her Pilgrim garb, fold one large handkerchief 
diagonally across the middle, lay it about her shoulders, and pin it in 
front. A second one fold backward from the hem about three inches, . 
lay it on her head with the fold framing her face, and while she 
holds it in position arrange the back into a cap by turning up the 
hem in the back until it is short enough to lay over the curve of her 
neck; take the two lower corners and, bringing them together at the 
centre of the back, pin one over the other. Flatten out the flap into 
a box-plait and pin. Caps made in any other way are equally effective, 
so that they are quaint. The third handkerchief is to be made into 
an apron. If each girl can wear a big-sister's skirt reaching i;o the 
ankles, the costume will be complete. 

Have six stools or kindergarten chairs placed about the front. 

One little girl acts as leader. She enters first, singing the song 
above, and courtesying daintily to the audience on the words, ''Just 
so. ' ' She then stands at one side and announces : 

''Working her Sampler.'* 

A second child enters, with a bit of coarse canvas or other material.' 
She walks to the little stool or chair, singing the above words of the 
song, with appropriate gestures, as she works. She keeps stitching 
through the remainder of the exercise. 

Leader announces: 

' ' Dipping the Candles. ' " 

A third child enters, and sings the same song, stooping over and 
dipping imaginary candles into tallow very slowly. After singing, 
she sits upon her stool beside the girl who is sewing, and occasionally 
dips a candle. 

Leader announces: 

"Spinning the Yarn.'' 

The fourth girl enters, and, sitting on her stool, sings words 
while pretending to spin — turning a wheel, pulling the thread, 

168 



PILGRIM MAIDS 169 

treadling witli one foot, and so on. All these things must be accom- 
plished with gestures. 
Leader announces: 

' ' Knitting the Stockings. ' * 

A fifth girl enters singing, and plying her needles in a bit of 
knitting which she holds up to audience (which may be part of the 
leg of a ready-made stocking). She sits on her stool and continues 
knitting. 

Leader announces: 

** Going to Church.*' 

The sixth girl enters, carrying her hymnal, her hands clasped 
demurely over her breast. 
Leader announces: 

^'Pilgrim Maids at School." 

All five leave their stools, and stand in a line, reading imaginary 
books. Seventh girl enters, and leader, looking very severe, leads her 
to a stool and when she sits down puts a dunce cap (a cone of stiff 
paper with the word " Dunce " printed on it) upon her head. At 
words, ''Just so," girls shake finger at the one upon the stool, who 
does not sing. After singing, all but leader resume stools. 

Leader warns: 

''Children should be seen — not heard." 

All the girls rise, put fingers on lips, and hum the air while passing 
out, shaking their heads sorrowfully, and showing they are not allowed 
to talk. Leader goes out first, and "Dunce" comes last. 



WAITING TO GROW 

FOR ANY NUMBER OP CHILDREN 

CHAEACTEES: Eobin, Eain, Wind, Sun, Flowers, Grass-Blades. 

COSTUMES: These need not be complicated, nor difficult, nor 
expensive. Eobin is a boy who wears a coat with long tails and a 
cap with a long beak, both made of dark-brown lining, and a waist- 
coat of red-brown. Sun wears a crown of gilt paper and shoulder- 
knots with long streamers, and a scepter all of the gilt paper, or of 
yellow cambric. Eain is a third boy, with a silver-covered hat, 
shoulder-knots, and long ends of silver, a bright red wand decorated 
with streamers of silver, and a small drum which he beats with his 
wand. . Wind wears a high-peaked hat of stiff paper, covered with 
irregular patches of bright colors, fringed shoulder-knots, and many 
streamers of vari-colored strips pinned on his sleeves and coat; he 
carries a big fan, and a trumpet, each decorated with long streamers 
in many colors. As many children as desired represent Grass-Blades, 
each one wearing a high-peaked hat, covered with strips of green 
tissue fringe, green shoulder-knots and streamers. The Flowers 
wear little dusting caps of the color of the blossoms represented, with 
little petals of green falling about the face, shoulder-knots and ends 
of the blossom-colors and green; thus, the Eose has a red cap with 
green petals and shoulder-knots and ends of red and green; Daisy 
wears white and green; Violet, blue and green; and so on. 

The Grass-Blades and the Flowers steal into the room and settle 
down in sleeping positions in different parts of the room, singly, and 
in groups, Flowers and Grass together. They sing in soft, sleepy 
tones "Waiting to Grow." After singing they continue their sleep. 



170 



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Waiting to Grow. 



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1. *| I/it - tie white Snow- drop justwak-ing up, 

2. And think what hosts of queer lit - tie seeds, 

3. And think of the roots all read -y to sprout, 

4. *1 On - ly a month or a few weeks more, 

5. *1 Noth-ing so small or hid -den so well, 



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Vi - o - let, Dai - sy and sweet But - ter-cup, 1 
Flow - ers and moss - es and ferns and weeds, Are 
Reach-ing their slen-der brown fin - gers a - bout. Are 
Will they wait be - hind that door: Oh, 

God can - not find it and ver - y soon tell His 



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Think of the flow'rs that 

un - der the leaves 

un - der the ice and 

lis - ten and watch, 

sun where to shine and 



are un - der the snow 

and un - der the snow, .... 
the leaves and the snow, .... 

for they are be - low, 

his rain where to go, To 



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Wait - ing to grow. 
Wait - ing to grow, 
Wait - ing to grow, 
help them to grow, 
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wait - ing to grow. 

wait - ing to grow, 

wait - ing to grow. 

wait - ing to grow, 

help them 'to grow. 



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171 



172 



FEIDAY AFTEENOON ENTEETAINMENTS 



Enter Wind, blowing a bugle-call on his trumpet. The Flowers 
and Grass -Blades stir drowsily. Some open their eyes, yawn, rub 
their lids, then settle back to sleep. Wind sings the first verse of the 
song as given for him, running here and there, fanning the Flowers 
and Grass; they stir, but do not awake. After singing he retires to 
one side, and Eain enters, beating a roll upon his drum, then waving 
his spear. He passes about singing his verse, the Wind in the back- 
ground softly tooting the air with him. The Flowers stir as before, 
but go on with their sleeping, as Eain retires to rear beside Wind. 
Sun enters very quietly. He passes about a-tiptoe, waving his scepter 
gently over the Flowers and Grass, as he sings. The Grasses waken 
slowly, and some -of the Flowers yawn and stretch, but do not open 
their eyes. The children should make this sleepy awakening as gen- 
uine as possible, rubbing their eyes, yawning and ^p on. While Sun 
sings, Wind toots the air softly on his trumpet, and Eain beats the 
time on his drum; after singing. Sun joins the other two at the back. 



The Wind, the Rain and the Sun. 



From "Pinafore." 



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1. I am the Wind, and I trav-el ver - y fast, Up - 

2. I am the Rain, with pat-ter and plash, And 

3. I am the Sun, and my sweet and gen-tle rays Will ac- 

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on my trum-pet I blow a great blast; I 
thun-der's roar and light - ning's flash; To 

com - plish more than nois - y ways; My 



WAITING TO GROW 



173 



fe ifeEtEE^ g^^i^^iE 



fan you all gai - ly as I hur - ry past, To 

wak-en you drow - sy ones in I dash, Nev-er 

sun - beams bright like fair - y fays, Will a 

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warn you that your win-ter's nap is o'er at last, 
car - ing if my man-ner be quite rude and rash, 
rouse you Sleep-ing Beau-ties for the glad spring days. 



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After Sun ceases singing, the Grass-Blades slowly arise, and join 
hands. They sing while bending to and fro. 

Creeping Everywhere. 



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1. By the sun - ny riv - er's side, Where the pleas-ant 

2. All a - round the o - pen door, Smil - ing on the 



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FEIDAY AFTERNOON ENTEETAINMENTS 



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merry May, Here we come,here we come, Creeping ev'rywhere. 



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Grass-Blades take position in semi-circle along wall. Enters Eobin 
singing, the first verse being addressed to the Wind, Eain, and Sun ; 
the remaining two to the different Flowers as he sees them: 



Robin's Song,^ 



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1. "Cheer-Up! Cheer-Up! Chee! Chee!" Now lis - ten all to 

2. "Cheer-up! Cheer-up! Chee! Chee!" O Snow-drop, I mean 

3. "Cheer-up! Cheer-up! Chee! Chee!" Old Win-ter's set you 



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WAITING TO GROW 



175 



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me! When I re - turn it's as sure as can 

thee ! . . . . And blue-eyed Vi - o - let yon - der I 
free But - ter - cup, Dai - sy and lit - tie Sweet- 



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aft - er me. 
aft - er me. 
aft - er me. 



be, That blos-soms come troop - ing 
see, I pray you, come fol - low - ing 
pea. Dear flow- ers, come blos-som-ing 



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While EoBiN sings, he nods his head from side to side, keeping 
time to the air, and walks proudly about, also keeping time with feet. 
The Flowers begin to nod their heads in rhythm with his song, as do 
the Grass-Blades. At the close of his song, all circle about him, 
and sing a familiar spring song. 



SONG BOOKS FOR TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS 



THE PRIMARY SONG BOOK. Words by Laura R. Smith. Music 
by T. B. Weaver. Contains seventy-two of the newest and best 
songs for primary and intermediate grades and for ungraded schools. 
The verses are pleasing and the music is simple and melodious. 
Several drills and exercises, opening and closing songs, etc., are 
included. 96 pages. Boards. Price, 30 cents; per dozen, $3.00. 

WEAVER'S SCHOOL SONGS. By T. B. Weaver. A new and 
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days and general school use. Every song underwent a careful test 
before it was permitted to form a part of this book. The result is 
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15 cents; per dozen, $1.50. 

A COLLECTION OF PATRIOTIC SONGS. A grand array of 
thirty-eight of the leading National patriotic airs and popular folk 
and home songs. Originally selected and arranged for use in the 
Chicago Public Schools. Printed from new plates on good paper 
and well bound. 48 large pages. Paper. Price, 10 cents; per dozen, $1.00. 

PRIMARY AND CALISTHENIC SONGS. With Musical Drills. 
By S. C. Hanson. A splendid handbook for the primary and inter- 
mediate teacher. It consists of 88 pages of superb motion and calis- 
thenic songs and 24 pages of musical drills. 112 large pages. Boards. 
Price, SO ceilts. 

MUSICAL GEMS. By Charles L. and M. W. Moore. A graded 
course in music for rural and village schools. It contains easy les- 
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ments of music explained and illustrated, with table of keys and 
glossary; and 65 pages of best selected songs, suitable for school 
exercises and public entertainments. 128 pages. Boards. Price, 30 
cents; per dozen, $3.00. 

GEMS OF SONG. By S. C. Hanson. This book contains: A clear 
and concise statement of the principles of vocal music, including help- 
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and well-graded exercises for practice, and a large collection of the 
choicest songs — both new and old — for public schools. 160 large 
pages. Boards. Price, 35 cents; per dozen, $3.60. 

A. FLANAGAN COMPANY :: :: CHICAGO 




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Entertainment Books 



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ALL THE HOLIDAYS. By Clara J, Denton. Contains 34 dialogues, 
exercises, and plays, and^ 36 recitations for all occasions and all grades. 
201 pages. Price, 30 cents. 

BAXTER'S CHOICE DIALOGUES. Ten short, spicy dialogues for 
old and young. 64 pages. Price, 15 cents. 

CASTLE'S SCHOOL ENTERTAINMENTS. The best all-round 
books of recitations, dialogues, tableaux, charades and drills for all grades. 
Four books published, each having over 200 pages. Price, each 30 cents. 
DICKERMAN'S DRILLS AND MARCHES. Seventeen new drills 
and exercises for the lower grades. Music and many illustrations. 86 
pages. Price, 30 cents. 

FAVORITE SONG PANTOMIMES. By Marie Irish. A collection 
of twenty-six of our old and favorite songs arranged with full direc- 
tions for pantomiming. Frontispiece illustration. 112 pages. Price, 30 
cents. 

THE NORMAL DIALOGUE BOOK. Humorous dialogues, tab- 
leaux, charades, shadow scenes and pantomimes for school exhibitions. 
Thirty-one selections in all 181 pages. Price, 30 cents. 
THANKSGIVING ENTERTAINMENTS. Contains 77 recitations. 
12 dialogues and exercises, 2 acrostics, 3 drills, 10 songs, 12 tableaux, and 
32 quotations. For all grades. 144 pages. Price, 25 cents. 
CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS. Has 72 recitations, 11 dialogues 
and exercises, 2 acrostics, 3 drills, 8 songs, 4 tableaux, and 33 quotations. 
160 pages. Price, 25 cents. 

THIRTY NEW CHRISTMAS DIALOGUES AND PLAYS. New, 
original, bright and clever Christmas dialogues and plays for children of 
all ages. 175 pages. Price, 30 cents. 

THE NEW CHRISTMAS BOOK. By Jos. C. wSindelar. This is a 
companion volume to "the author's Christmas Celebrations, of which over 
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CHICAGO 



